Longtime readers know my proclivity for big, bold, festively garnished tiki drinks served over buckets of crushed ice. There’s plenty of recipes here on CocktailWonk.com and in the Minimalist Tiki book which testify to that. However, simple, boozy libations over a single large cube in an old-fashioned glass are also in regular rotation here at... Continue Reading →
Hey there! I hear you're working on an article about rum for a beverage/food/lifestyle magazine/blog/podcast. Rum has certainly become one of the "it" things to cover, so welcome to the party! There are many folks who are passionate about rum, including a few of us rum-focused writers. We all love rum and are working in the... Continue Reading →
The US TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) is the federal agent responsible for regulating alcoholic drinks, including distilled spirits, wine, beer. Among their many roles is regulating how these drinks are labeled. Every distilled spirit legally sold in the U.S. (imported or not) must get TTB approval for their label. The regulations... Continue Reading →
In December of 2019 I visited Trinidad as a guest of Angostura. There, I met John Georges, Angostura’s recently retired Master Distiller. Georges had a front row seat for rum history over the last four decades, and I was privileged to spend several days picking his brain about all sorts of topics. As fellow engineers... Continue Reading →
You might think what follows is yet another story about Angostura Bitters. Sure, the iconic skinny bottle with the over-sized white label is as essential as shaker tins in cocktail bars around the globe. Hands stained red from the Trinidadian-made bitters are a sure sign of a professional bartender. And of course, there’s the story... Continue Reading →
With the help of many passionate rum enthusiasts doing a lot of ongoing education, we’re finally starting to make progress in disabusing people of the idea that categorizing rum by color (White, Gold, Dark, Black) makes any sense at all. (Hopefully, brands also get the message.) There’s simply no correlation between a rum’s color and... Continue Reading →
For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, William Prestwood’s Quarantine Order recipe is garnering a lot of attention from tiki & tropical cocktail enthusiasts lately. William generously allowed us to use his recipe in our book, Minimalist Tiki. It’s one of a hundred or so original modern tike recipes in the book... Continue Reading →
Komal Samaroo has played a pivotal role in the extraordinary changes in the rum industry over the fifty years he’s been a part of it, starting with Booker’s Rum Company in 1969. Today, he’s the Executive Chairman of Demerara Distillers Ltd. (DDL), one of the largest Caribbean rum producers, and home of El Dorado Rum.... Continue Reading →
To my great delight, interest in rum from bourbon enthusiasts has gathered steam recently. As a writer I’m keenly aware that many topics in the bourbon world are well-tread ground, while rum has far more undeveloped land, so to speak. Many of the recent stories here on Cocktail Wonk have focused on rum, but it... Continue Reading →
Without sugar cane, there is no rum. While some rums are made directly from fresh pressed sugar cane juice, the overwhelming majority of rum comes from molasses, one of the outputs of sugar cane processing. An extremely simplified description of sugar cane processing is: Input: Sugar cane stalksOutput 1: Sugar crystals – The primary output,... Continue Reading →
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