Cigar Library
Cigar ArticlesAuthor: Inspector X
During covid I was bored. So I watched a lot of television and a lot of old episodes of Bar Rescue, where ‘the Gordon Ramsey of the bar industry’, Jon Taffer rescues failing bars. A concept that Gordon Ramsey also uses in Kitchen Nightmares and I remember watching Hotel Impossible many moons ago where failing hotels were rescued by a hotel expert. But Kitchen Nightmares and Hotel Impossible aside, while watching Bar Rescue I noticed they created cocktails in every episode. That looked delicious and fun to do, so I got myself a cocktail kit and started experimenting. It quickly became a hobby and I love making cocktails for my wife and my friends.
But there is a downside to becoming a amateur mixologist. Most cocktails at bars are not up to my standards anymore as I know how to improve them, and taste when they use poor quality ingredients such as commercial bottled juices instead of freshly squeezed juice. Plus the liquor cabinet explodes, as you will need ingredients that you don’t use often but those bottles (like absinth, Chartreuse, bitters and other liqueurs) take up a lot of space.
Often people ask me “what is your favourite cocktail” or “what is the best cocktail to pair with a cigar”. These questions seem similar but aren’t. Some of my favourite cocktails are citrus forward and citrus forward cocktails are hard to pair with cigars. I also like the Miami Vice, but it’s not a cocktail I will recommend here as it’s quite some work. Plus it’s also a personal taste thing. I am not a fan of spirit forward cocktails, where all of the ingredients are spirits. So don’t expect me to answer Martini, Negroni, Manhattan of something similar while there are others who swear by a negroni with their cigar.
So here are 5 recommendations of rum based cocktails to try with a cigar. Recommendations are in random order by the way. Let us know in the comments what your favourite rum based cocktail is from this list or if you have any recommendations for me to try.
Miami Vice 2.0
The Miami Vice cocktail is actually a combination of two cocktails. A strawberry daiquiri and the famous Piña Colada. There is a version made with a blender, and that seems to be the original, yet I prefer the shaken version. The origin of the Miami Vice 2.0 comes from Miami, from a local bar called Broken Shaker.
The nose it neutral due to the amount of ice. Before mixing, the bottom part is just pure strawberry puree, sweet with a little acidity. The upper part is creamy, sweet with coconut and a little lime, all with a pineapple flavour. The bite of the white rum, and the toffee from the Flor de Caña 18 combine well with the other ingredient. Now I used Flor de Caña 18, which provided the toffee but if you use another dark rum, that flavour might be lacking. Once mixed, the thickness and the creaminess remind me of a milkshake, but a spiked milkshake and better than the strawberry milkshakes at McDonalds. This will go well with a nice medium Connecticut Shade cigar, or a medium bodied Habano.
And now for the Miami Vice 2.0 recipe:
1 ounce or 30ml of light rum
1 ounce or 30ml of dark rum
1 ounce or 30ml of unsweetened coconut (not cream of coconut)
1 ¼ or 37½ml of pineapple juice
¾ ounce or 22½ml of simple syrup
½ ounce or 15ml of lime juice
1 dash of angostura bitters
4 strawberries
Cut the strawberries and put them in the glass. Add a tiny bit of simple syrup to make it easier to muddle. Muddle the strawberries. Put all the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake for 15 seconds. Put crushed ice on top of the strawberries. Pour the contents of the shaker tin on top of the ice.
Jungle Bird
Jungle Bird is a cocktail born in Malaysia. You would not expect a cocktail from a Muslim dominated country, but there is a healthy party scene in Malaysia’s capital and this cocktail was created somewhere in the 1970’s at the aviary bar of the Hilton hotel in Kuala Lumpur. And in my previous rum recommendations, I recommended the Tea Amour, another cocktail born in Kuala Lumpur.
I had a bottle of Campari laying around, bought once to make a Negroni and then discovering that I hate Campari. But then I discovered the Jungle Bird, and now I am on my third of fourth bottle of Campari. On the nose this cocktail is very mild, with just a bit of pineapple. The cocktail enough sweetness from the pineapple to balance the bitterness of the Campari. The lime gives it the tardiness that this cocktail needs, with the sweet vanilla notes of the rum. I think I’m in love. Complex, full of depth and balanced. A perfect cocktail for a stronger cigar.
And now for the Jungle Bird recipe:
1½ ounce or 45ml of Ultimatum Infinitum 12
¾ ounce or 22½ ounce of Campari
1½ ounce or 45ml of Pineapple juice
½ ounce or 15ml of lime juice, freshly squeezed
½ ounce or 15ml of rich Demerara syrup
Garnish: pineapple wedge and pineapple leaf
Add the rum, Campari, pineapple juice, lime juice and the syrup in a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.
Painkiller
This is a tricky cocktail, not because of the cocktail but because of one of the ingredients. Pusser’s Rum trademarked this cocktail, so you can make the exact same cocktail with another rum and you are not allowed to call it a painkiller. I make one with Diplomatico rum, it’s not a painkiller, then I made one with Pusser’s Rum and it’s a painkiller.
About the trademark, the original Painkiller was created in the 1970s at the Soggy Dollar Bar at White Bay on the island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands and originally it was made with Cruzan Rum. In 1989, Pusser’s Rum Ltd. filed a US trademark on the Painkiller’s name and recipe. When a Tiki bar named Painkiller opened in the Lower East Side of New York City in May of 2011, Pusser’s sent a cease and desist order to owners Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato, both for the bar’s name and for selling Painkiller cocktails made with rums other than Pusser’s. Gonzalez and Boccato reached an out-of-court settlement with Pusser’s, which included them renaming the bar to PKNY. In response to the news, numerous bartenders organized a boycott against Pusser’s Rum.
A mild aroma of pineapple with quite some nutmeg as expected. My wife, who is my Guinea pig when it comes to cocktails, was very happy that I made the Painkiller again. The pineapple sweetness, the richness of the rum, the creaminess of the coconut and the tartness of the citrus all work together so well. This is a very nice and balanced tiki cocktail, with quite a frothy, creamy mouthfeel that would go well with a lot of cigars. But I’d stay away from creamy cigars as the cream would be an overkill. I wouldn’t go for a peppery cigar either but something medium to medium full bodied with a nice profile of wood, spice and coffee.
2 ounces or 60ml of Pusser’s rum
4 ounces or 120ml of Pineapple Juice
1 ounce or 30ml of Orange Juice, freshly squeezed
1 ounce or 30ml of Cream of Coconut (not coconut cream)
Garnish: nutmeg and a pineapple wedge
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a glass hurricane over fresh, crushed ice. Garnish with grated nutmeg and the pineapple wedge, serve with a straw.
Bumblebee
Now if you google for the Bumblebee cocktail you get a lot of different recipes. Layered cocktails with either Irish Cream or with coffee liqueur, there are mocktails with that name too, but that is not the one we are making. The Bumblebee that I am drinking comes from Charles H. Baker’s The South American Gentleman’s Companion but with a slight twist. Instead of using 45ml of Jamaican rum and 15 ml of another Jamaican rum, I’ll be using 60ml of Bumbu XO. The book stems from 1951 but reprints are available on Amazon.
The three drops of bitters that float on top are pretty dominant in the flavour, although there is citrus as well with the fruity notes from the rum. The cocktail is very balanced and the egg white provides a nice and creamy texture. The sweetness of the rum and the honey balances the tard of the lime out, while the bitters provide debt. The rum plays a part on the background with its fruit, toffee and coffee flavours. This is not an overcomplicated cocktail, and you don’t need an overcomplicated cigar with this.
And now for the Bumblebee recipe:
2oz or 60ml of Rum
¾ oz or 22½ml of lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 oz or 30ml of honey syrup
1 egg white
3 drops of Angostura bitters
Garnish: orange peel
Put rum, lime juice, honey syrup and egg white in a shaker. Shake vigorously. Then add ice and shake again until chilled. Strain into a coupe or a cocktail glass, garnish with an orange peel and 2 drops of Angostura bitters.
Banana Hammock
The Banana Hammock is a playful riff on the Banana Daiquiri by Dan Greenbaum at Attaboy, a cocktail bar in New York City. Some recipes ask for spiced rum, others for white rum. Some ask for banana syrup, others for banana liqueur. But this recipe I took from the Plantation website and I follow this recipe by the letter. I followed this recipe as I was making this cocktail with Plantation 3 Stars rum.
The aroma is already complex. Nutmeg, mint, citrus, almond and the coconut from the rum. The lime is quite strong, but not too strong to make this hard to pair with a cigar. The banana is there on the background, together with the rum notes. I’m not sure what the orgeat does more than just bring sweetness as the almond flavour is not noticeable at all. The float over overproof rum gives the cocktail extra body. The cigar to pair with this needs body too, so from Cuba I would go for a Partagas or Bolivar. For a new world cigar, go for a stronger Nicaraguan cigar.
and now for the Banana Hammock recipe:
1½ ounce or 45ml of white rum
1 ounce or 30ml of lime juice, freshly squeezed
½ ounce or 15ml of Banana Liqueur
½ ounce or 15ml of Orgeat
¼ ounce or 7½ml of overproof rum to float
Garnish: Mint sprig, nutmeg, lime wedge.
Pour all the ingredients except for the overproof rum in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a rocks glass with crushed ice. Float the overproof rum on top, garnish with mint, freshly grated nutmeg and a lime wedge.
