Once upon a time, there was a sailor. For twenty years he voyaged around the Caribbean as the winds took him. Living on an anchor, he saw an awful lot of the world, and from a very different perspective than you and I. And as a man is wont to do, when afloat on the seas of experience, he took time for introspection. And since such men are likely to deepen their thoughts with whatever spirit others around him enjoy, this man found himself awash in the mysteries of the spirit of the Caribbean, rum. The man found that rum wasn’t just a useful aid in processing his experiences into wisdom, but that wisdom of rum was a wondrous thing in and of itself. And his wisdom grew….

The sailor’s name is Ed Hamilton, and when his life’s journey at last carried him to the shore, his knowledge and love of rum took him there. Now Ed is a spirits consultant and an importer of various rums and complementary products. He also is the proprietor of one of the premier repositories of rum wisdom, The Ministry of Rum.

In the last two years, Ed has taken on a great task, one that makes him important to many cocktail lovers in America, whether they know him or not. And it is why I want to tell his story here during Tiki Month.

You see, there is a magical elixir, utterly unique in the rum world. It is an essential ingredient in the drink that made the Tiki revolution happen back in the past. This ingredient is Lemon Hart 151 rum. For most people, 151 proof rums are rocket fuel, in taste as well as potency. If they think of such rums at all, they view them as Everclear with a Caribbean accent. But Lemon Hart is a rich, flavorful rum in the demerara vein, very pleasant to nose, and not quite impossible to sip… while still being quite capable of getting your jet off the ground.
This combination of complex flavors and (somewhat) hidden potency makes Lemon Hart 151 an iconic Tiki drink ingredient, reflecting the characteristics of such standard concoctions as the Zombie, which are also delicious and deceptively powerful.

But as a brand navigating the cold open oceans of the international liquor business, Lemon Hart was, and is, but a small ketch. Since the heyday of both it and Tiki, it has been kicked around from one owner to another until it landed in the portfolio of Pernod, which eventually dropped the brand to concentrate on such products as the Malibu Coconut Rums. (Ed stands behind no man in his admiration of Malibu. Really. Just ask him….) At last, Pernod found a buyer in Montreal-based distillers, Mosaiq, makers purveyors of Flor de Cana, among many other types and brands of liquor. Mosaiq searched for the right man to bring Lemon Hart back to the US market, and through the Ministry of Rum, they found our sailor.

Since then, Ed has been laboring to work this funky product back into our market. Since his efforts are responsible for my now having a good supply of Lemon Hart 151, and I’ll be featuring it several times this Tiki Month, I called Ed to ask him about Lemon Hart, and other things.

In the photo above, you see two bottles, both Lemon Hart 151. The one on the left is the classic label that Lemon Hart aficionados were used too. It is readily distinguished form the old Lemon Hart 80 only in the little red corner on the upper left that says “151″. The design, while iconic to those who know the product, is frankly dated and has a tired, 70′s look to it. It is also the label that buyers saw when we excitedly bought our first bottles when Ed brought back Lemon Hart to the States.
Now, the bottle looks like the one on the right. It combines such modern tech as embossing and gilt lettering, with an ancient, pre-colonial design that probably does a better job conveying the sort of spirit that is in the bottle. But it is radically different looking. I wanted to know what was up, as did a whole bunch of fans.

It turns out, so did Ed. The first bottles sold in the US upon the spirit’s return were leftovers from Pernod’s old inventory, which Ed bought lock, stock, and barrel. With that gone, he started obtaining the newly produced stuff. Mosaiq, he told me, had elected to change the production stream for Lemon Hart. It is and was distilled in Guyana. But whereas it used to be blended, colored, and bottled in Ontario, it is now blended and colored in Guyana, before being bottled in Newfoundland, in the same place that makes bottles Crystal Head Vodka. Any time a liquor changes its production chain, some alteration in the product is almost inevitable. In some cases, the change can be so great as to make it an entirely new product. Ed told me that Zaya is a recent example, and that it has happened more than once with products in the Matusalem line. So he was itchy about what would happen with this product in which he has invested so much of his time, credit, and prestige.

He was especially antsy when they told him it was going to be “better”.
“Listen, you or I don’t get to say whether it is ‘better’ or not,” he told them. “The bartenders out there across the country, and their customers who know this spirit, will want to try the new version, and see if it works for the special uses they have for it. They will tell us if it is acceptable, let alone better.”

Ed took a new bottle of the LH151 to San Francisco. He sat down with Martin Cate, rum god of Smuggler’s Cove (one of the single most entertaining bars of any kind I have ever entered), and one of those people who will likely be most responsible for deciding the whole “better” thing. They tasted the new against a bottle of the old. They videotaped their discussion, and you can watch them evaluate the new versus the old yourself.

That video is not a marketing exercise designed to puff up expectations about the product, but two old pros really trying to evaluate whether a new version of a tool is still going to be good for the job it in which it is to be used. The bottom line, if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, is that both men feel that Mosaiq has managed to keep the character, aroma, and flavor of Lemon Hart 151 essentially intact. Whatever minor variances from the example bottle of the old stuff they compare it to are the sort you would expect anyway between runs of a small batch product like this.
In the language of sailors everywhere, they didn’t f**k it up.

Now, I had never had Lemon Hart’s 151 until Ed brought it back, but I was quite fond of the regular, 80-proof stuff. The 80 also stopped entering the US inventory stream at roughly the same time. Since stocks finally ran out, I have from time to time seen grumpy cocktail geeks fanatically trying to track down reported rumors of remaining bottles of LH80 as if they were shouting, “Hast thou seen the White Whale?”
I asked Ed about the status of getting the 80 proof Lemon Hart back, and he confessed to having no good answer. Mosaiq does in fact make the 80, and sells it as far away as Germany, but has chosen not to offer it here for the time being. Buy lots of the 151, Americans, and perhaps they’ll get off the dime.

So what should folks like me who have favorite recipes that use LH80 do to employ LH151 in its place, I asked Ed. While the 80 is supposedly nothing but the 151, more heavily diluted, he replied, it isn’t as simple as just pouring (just over) half a bottle of 151 into a new bottle and filling it up water. It takes time to add the water slowly, in steps, to allow the liquor to marry up and the flavors to remain balanced. The characteristics of the water would also matter. Bottom line is that if you want to sip good Lemon Hart 80 in the US, see if you can get the Kennedys to make themselves useful again and go back to bringing in hooch from Canada under cover of darkness.
In an individual cocktail, you can get away with using less of the 151 than you would of the 80, and adding a little still water. In fact, Ed points out that this is likely to be considerably more economical than if you just bought the 80. In my own experiments with this LH80 cocktail, a favorite of ours before the dark days of its disappearance from shelves, I’ve found you get the best results from using a ratio of 2 parts LH151 to 1 part water to make up the required volume of LH80 in the original recipe. I’m willing to accept the hardship of a slightly higher alcohol content to reach the flavor I remember….

Lemon Hart 151 is available in close to half of US states now, including the big ones like Texas, New York, and California. Sorry, my fellow Ohioans, if we want it, we can mail order it or drive to Kentucky.

I asked Ed what was his favorite Tiki cocktail that used the 151. He first noted that he actually isn’t a big cocktail guy at all, preferring to sip his rum neat to really appreciate the unique character of each. But he was quick to point out that in the case of Lemon Hart 151, this isn’t really practical, as sipping straight 75% ethanol is a short trip to a long night…. He makes plenty of Zombies, of course, though he has no set recipe.
Instead he offers us this suggestion for a cocktail we may not have tried: A Lemon Hart 151 Old-Fashioned. He carefully pointed out that you do need to actually use some water in this version. His unspoken contention being an agreement with me, and David Wondrich, that real men, and real broads, don’t put no stinking soda water in Old-Fashioneds other than this one. To sweeten, he suggests using Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup, a rich, raw sugar syrup that brings a lot of character of its own.

By the by, Petite Canne is imported by Carribean Spirits, Inc., Ed Hamilton, proprietor. Our Sailor is also a Salesman….

Talking rum with Ed is like drinking from a fire hose. I learned a helluva lot more about rum from him than I’ve been able to put in this post. I’ll try to share more as the opportunity presents itself during this and future Tiki Months. Should you want to learn more from Ed and his merry crew of rumophiles, I urge you to visit the Ministry of Rum, read the articles and explore the message forum.

Thanks Ed, for the time and the hooch.

Drink: Sidewinder’s Fang
Mug: Dynasty Skull Mug
Available at BarSupplies.com and elsewhere.

Midcentury exotica didn’t just cater to suburban fantasies of work-free islands and guilt-free sex. There was also the call of adventure, epitomized by these classic “dangerous” drinks: if the sharks didn’t eat you, the cannibals would.
—Beachbum Berry Beachbum Berry Remixed, Pg. 86

There is quite a bit going on in that quote. Expect to see it several times this Tiki Month.

I want to kick off Tiki Month with a pleasant little cocktail with a scary name, the Sidewinder’s Fang. Berry’s words, and the Sidewinder’s characteristics bring to mind other scary things, like rollercoasters.

Top Thrill Dragster. (via: SodaHead)
Scary name. Pants-wettingly scary ride. See SodaHead for proof.

The DRAGON!!!
Only scary because it is found at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.

Everybody likes scary stuff, but while some of us like to really be scared, others just like the idea of being scared. As the Bum notes, the Tiki oeuvre is replete with scary names and images, designed to make you almost fear the drink. Some cocktails, like the Zombie and the Hurricane are as devastating as their monikers imply, others not so much.

The Sidewinder’s Fang is such a drink.

In a glass, this guy looks pretty much like a washed-out Screwdriver. The taste, assuming you use good juice and syrups, is surprisingly complex and bright. As you can see, it isn’t all that scary, if you know the ingredients. But for a culture built around the deceptive power of the Zombie… And the Sidewinder’s Fang tastes like it might be one of those roll of quarters in a sock-type drinks.

You may think, since it is so relatively weak already, you can omit the soda water. Don’t. Without the soda, the juices totally overwhelm the drink and none of the rum comes through. Undiluted, it tastes too sweet, and you might just as well use have used cheap well rum instead of the interesting stuff. That said, I think 3 parts of soda water may be too much, so use your own judgement as you mix.

Regardless, this drink is an easy and delicious mix to serve to guests as an evening extender. It maintains an existing buzz without advancing it too much. And if you use big ice cubes (which you should, if available) it is a drink you can drink fairly slowly without it losing its appeal.

{This recipe can be found in Beach Bum Berry Remixed and in Beachbum Berry’s Tiki+ app.}

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2012 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

Vote for Matt Robold (Rumdood) to be Tommy Bahama’s first Rumologist™. Once a day will make you feel great.
{Pictured above: NOT Matt Robold}

Virtually all major alcohol manufacturers have some form of responsible drinking campaign. It is good corporate citizenship and better politics. One of mega-distiller Bacardi’s efforts in this vein is Champions Drink Responsibly.
In conjunction with this year’s US Open (Tennis, of course… though I understand there is one for Golf, or elevator repair, or some such as well), the new face of the program is Raphael Nadal.

I’m posting about this here for a couple of reasons. I want to say a few things about my own opinions on responsible drinking, and how to achieve it with the maximum enjoyment. I also love Tennis, even more than Baseball. And finally, well… Rule 5 isn’t just for guys…

Click most photos to enlarge.

Oh my!
Er, that’s his Armani shoot, right?

You’re welcome, ladies.
(more…)

A little while ago, I wrote a post about a new aged rum, Ron de Jeremy.
Yes, named for that Ron Jeremy.

Oh dear, I have a bad feeling about this post….

Probably wise.

Anyway, the Liquor Fairy rolled up this week with a bottle of Ron de Jeremy for my review! There really is a lot to go over, fun and serious, with this rum, and it is hard to decide where to…

Heh. You said, “hard”!

Don’t you start in, too!
I’ve got no problem with any of the subject matter, just the way you two are going to wallow in….

Sigh. If you two keep interrupting me, this is going to be one long post.

You said, “long”!

…

Ron de Jeremy is the brainchild of two Finnish guys, Ollie Hietalahti and Jouko Laune. Sitting one evening in a bar in Amsterdam, they were congenially perusing the rum offerings. They were struck by the group of rums which use the Spanish word, “Ron”, in their names. Soon, they were boozily riffing on made up rums that sounded like people’s names, until one of them uttered the fateful words, “Ron de Jeremy!”
For the heroes of our tale, this was one of those cocktail napkin ideas that was too good to discard upon regaining sobriety, and they resolved to make the brainstorm a reality. Neither had ever met The Man before, but Olli was undaunted and picked up the phone to make his pitch. “Talk about a cold call!” he remembers.
With buy-in from Ron, who had been upset for years at all these booze manufacturers who were “using his name” to market their rum, One-Eyed Spirits was born. They even tell this story (slightly embellished) in one of their many videos:

The company has made a number of good choices in getting their rum to market.
First, being advertising men, they created a lush, gorgeous ad campaign. It has fantastic still imagery…

(You can enjoy a silent video of how they made that picture here.)

Second, they also created some awesome video and one of the more entertaining product websites you will find. (And yes, it is perfectly safe, if a bit suggestive.) I suggest, no I require, that you go in particular to the How to Mix Drinks Ron Style section. In it you can choose which of Ron’s three comely bartenders will make one of three drinks. Each has their own style of very unique “flair” for each drink that you won’t want to miss. Neither Gaz Regan nor Tom Cruise has anything on these ladies’ routines.

Third, they indulged themselves in just the right amount of juvenile humor. I won’t steal anymore of their jokes than I did in my first post. Just poke around the website and…

Heh. You said, “poke”!

…!

Fourth, and most importantly, they realized that as great spirits makers… they made great ad men. (Ad men are awesome at consuming great spirits, but it is important to know what you don’t know.) So they contracted with an established distillery in Panama (Alcoholes y Rones de Panama) to produce their molasses-based product, and hired an old pro, Francisco “Don Pancho” Fernandez to create it. The 72 year-old Don Pancho is a second-generation Cuban rum maker whose other rums include Zafra and Havana Club’s 7 Anos.

So, how’d he do with Ron de Jeremy?

It is hard to know what to expect with celebrity-connected products of any kind. Drinkhacker was a bit bemused by Ice-T’s brandy. Many of us were pleasantly surprised by Dan Aykroyd’s Crystal Head. In this case, I think they’ve got a winner. While they tout Ron de Jeremy as both a sipping and mixing rum, I think it leans more toward the former. It has a lovely vanilla and orange aromas and flavors. It’s quite smooth, even neat. It reminds me in many ways, stylistically and olfactorally, of a nice Cognac.

Few rums with any character are all purpose mixers, of course. Ron de Jeremy makes only a decent Mai Tai by itself. I got better results by blending it with other rums, but I never found a perfect match. Perhaps the Dood will come up with something. For me, I found it blends better with herbal or spice elements than fruits, so I’ll likely look elsewhere for my Tiki needs.

But where the Ron de Jeremy really shines is in a dead simple Old-Fashioned.

I am completely serious. This is about the best Rum Old-Fashioned I’ve made yet, and I make a lot of Rum Old-Fashioneds.

As Craig Ferguson would say, I look forward to your letters….

Hey!
I can think of some great entertainment to enjoy while having one of these!

Oh, you can think of that entertainment all you want….

You almost certainly won’t find Ron de Jeremy in your local liquor store yet, but you can find it in the US from DrinkUpNY. European readers should try Masters of Malt. Let me know if you try it, I’d love to hear your take.

Well, it is Mixology Monday time again, folks! That is our monthly round up of cocktail bloggers, posting in harmony on a single theme. This month’s festivities are being hosted by Nancy, The Backyard Bartender. The theme that she has decreed for us is, “Some Like it Hot!”

Now, I’m not much of a hot alcoholic beverage guy, at least not yet. (We’ll see after I read everybody’s posts) But as it happens, the announcement for this month’s MxMo came across my reader less than an hour after I had discovered the perfect drink for me for this month’s entry.

See, this is the last post I’ll be putting up during Tiki Month 2011, my annual month-long exploration of all things Tiki. Tiki drinks are hardly a bastion of hot beverages, tending more to the delicate chill of crushed ice. so it was fortuitous indeed, perhaps fated, that I find this idea.

One of the classic hot drinks, perhaps the classic hot drink, is the Hot Buttered Rum, and I’m sure we’ll see a few of these this Mixology Monday. One of the classic Tiki drinks, perhaps the classic Tiki drink, is the Mai Tai. The Mai Tai is made with rum. Hmmm.

Let’s Tiki, an excellent Tiki blog I just discovered this month, had a post late last year producing this cosmic convergence, the Hot Buttered Mai Tai. He even produced a good video of the process for making it, but since I’m stealing his drink for my MxMo post, I’ll make you have to visit his blog to see it.

Like any good Tiki drink, this one is a little complicated to make and requires a two step process. First, you have to whip up a batch of the mix. Simply combine 4 tablespoons of softened butter with 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract. Then stir in 2 tablespoons of orange zest. This is going on all the zest you can get from a single large orange. (Remember when zesting to not abrade the orange too deeply. Orange zest is yummy, the orange pith which dwells a millimeter deeper is not.) This is enough to make four Hot Buttered Mai Tais. I don’t know for sure, but if you keep it sealed in plastic wrap in single serving sized dollops, it should keep a good while.

When you are ready to make your drink, here’s the recipe.

HOT BUTTERED MAI TAI

• 2 oz. good dark rum
• 1 tbsp. mix
• 2 tsp. honey (to taste)
• hot water

Combine rum and mix in a small coffee cup. Add a small amount of hot water and stir to dissolve. Add honey to taste.

The resulting drink is interesting. It combines the basic Mai Tai taste elements, but from often different directions. It is pretty good, but is very easy to screw up as well.

First, don’t scrimp on the quality of the rum. Just because this is a hot drink doesn’t mean you can get away with any old rum.
I know.
I tried.
Just as with a regular Mai Tai, you need a rich, full-bodied dark rum, or even a blend of rums. (Rum blending for Mai Tais can lead you down the rabbit hole of obsession, so be careful). I tried this first with Mount Gay Eclipse, a perfectly serviceable dark rum which I’d never use in a regular Mai Tai, to totally bland results.

The other way you can ruin this drink is too much hot water. Add a small amount at a time. And try to find the smallest Tiki vessel you can to mix it in. Let your mix get to room temp before you make the drink and you won’t need much to dissolve it and the honey. Then add a bit more for heat and to taste.

The Hot Buttered Mai Tai is a worthy last drink for Tiki Month, and a fun challenge to make with a tasty result. It won’t replace the classic in my repertoire, but I’ll keep it in my quiver for the right occasion. Now, head back to Nancy’s place and check out every one else’s hot drinks. Some like it hot, maybe you will too!

That’s it for Tiki Month. As usual, I have about thirty posts still in my draft queue that I just couldn’t get to. I may hit a few throughout the year, and the rest will have to wait for Tiki Month 2012! It’s been a gas, thanks for all the readers and the comments. Stick around as we return next month to our usual classic frivolity!

It’s the last day of Tiki Month, which sucks. But this drink doesn’t.

Over at Spirited Remix, DJ HawaiianShirt (who blogs under that name because people like me have no prayer of pronouncing his real last name), gets into the Tiki Month action with a nice rundown of the original Tiki phenomenon. He combines a truly epic amount of Rule 2 linkage with a perfect listing of the seven reasons why the glorious world of Tiki is also such a pain in the ass. He could not have hit on the head more precisely why Tiki Month is a once a year thing. The list is in the middle of the post. Go read it. He also includes a nice roundup of how to make your own passion fruit syrup. I’ll add that this method can be generalized to the making bar syrups out of most any fruit you can juice.

His whole post leads up to a description of the Reverb Crash, a Tiki drink that won the Tiki Central Drink Contest in 2003. The creator is a denizen of that board that goes by the handle Kick-The-Reverb, who remains a big part of things over there. With Tiki Month winding down, I whipped up one of these for lunch and a photoshoot. (Work with me, Baby!)

This is a nice little concoction. It is not too sweet, but pleasant and refreshing to drink. At six ingredients, it is a good example of a middlin’ complex Tiki drink, but one of the good ones where you can still make out each ingredient therein. Give it a try, you’ll like it.

Guyana and its stills. A cool history of Demerara rum production, the signature spirit of Guyana. (via @Trinkwelten)

One of the more interesting characteristics of Tiki drinks is how many variations there sometimes are under the same name. The iconic example is the Mai Tai, of course. Donn Beach and Vic Bergeron each made one (as did, eventually, everybody else) but the drinks are practically unrelated. I often say that one secret to creating a great drink is to give it a good name with a good story. Since the original Tiki masters were so often obsessively secretive about their concoctions, it was hard for one bar to steal adopt the creation of another. But it was pretty easy to appropriate a good name or story. Today, I thought I’d look at one such drink that seems to have been passed around more than Madonna in an NBA locker room, the Chief Lapu Lapu.

In Remixed, Jeff Berry offers three versions of the Lapu Lapu. I tried the two that date to the original Tiki era, the Chief Lapu Lapu, and the Aku Aku Lapu. The Chief dates from the mid-50s, and its original place of nativity is lost to history. The Aku Aku Lapu dates from around 1960 and originated in the Las Vegas Tiki restaurant Aku Aku. The drinks are similar in that they are fairly typical Tiki concoctions. They blend different rums with a variety of juices and syrups, and are traditionally served in a vessel sized for two. Both are relatively well balanced and tasty, though both present the distinctively Tiki “muddled flavor profile” that leaves some cocktailians dismissing the genre. If you like Tiki drinks in general, one or another Lap Lapu is worth a spin.

This recipe seemed to me. upon first reading it, like a hell of a lot of sweetness. But you serve it with a lot of ice so there is much dilution. This gives me an excuse to point you toward my recent post about Giuseppe Gonzalez’s studies on dilution, and his realization that the more dilution you have in a drink, the more sweet is needed to maintain balance. This drink demonstrates that in practice, as it is well-balanced, despite all that syrup and OJ.

The Aku Aku Lapu is a more complex recipe, and frankly strays into the Damn Pain In The Ass To Make school of Tiki drinks. I had to make it with a slightly larger pour of regular Lemon Hart, since the Great Lemon Hart 151 Drought of 2010 has yet to be broken. Also, this drink is not as much more complex than the Chief Lapu Lapu as I had anticipated. I liked it a bit better myself, but the PeguWife preferred the Chief. I’d really like to try it with the LH 151, as I don’t think that the Aku Aku is as balanced (as I made it) as the Chief, and I’d like to see if that is the issue. Does anyone have a good rule-of-thumb replacement ratio for LH 151 to LH 80?

As an afterword, I mentioned that a great drink benefits from a great story behind it or its name. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed that the Lapu Lapu is not a more aggressive or assertive cocktail. There was a real Chief Lapu Lapu centuries ago. He was a Muslim chief on the island of Mactan in the Philippines when Ferdinand Magellan came through on his cruise round the globe. And he’s the reason Magellan’s voyage completed it’s circumnavigation of the globe, but Magellan himself did not.
It seems that in the Philippines, as elsewhere on the trip, Ferdinand decided to engage in a bit of conversion by the sword. However, Lapu Lapu decided to engage in a bit of shooting the Spaniards in the unarmored legs with poisoned arrows instead. He was a fierce and independent Badass, and a drink named for him ought to be a bit more dangerous, or at least fierce.

Just to set the mood, I want to lead off Tiki Month 2011 with a cocktail, the Nui Nui. This is a Don the Beachcomber creation from 1937, and tastes like it.

Of course the true cocktailistas among you may want to make your own syrups, and good on you if you do. Don’s Spices #2 is believed to be an equal mix of vanilla syrup and Allspice Dram if you want to give it a go. (I specify Trader Tiki’s syrups because he makes good stuff, during Tiki Month I’m going to need lots of different syrups and I don’t want to make it all myself, and because I like Blair and am happy to pimp his product.)

Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Allspice are all strong, exotic flavors, and the Nui Nui presents them well. It’s not the easiest drink to make, however, as I’ve found that even minute adjustments in the amount of the syrups can really effect the flavor and balance of the final mix.

I find this drink to be fairly emblematic of the early Tiki drinks, that were heavy on the exotica. These flavors would have been practically unheard of in drinks in the 30′s and 40s, and would have been critical in creating the vibe of foreign, even alien, excitement that drove Tiki in its early heyday. Don’s drinks in particular have this sort of flavor profile. I’ve found a number of his recipes where he’s gone too far for me with the spices, but this one is just right.

(Source: Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari)