Boston Sidecar

I'm a fan with the regular Sidecar, which is brandy, triple sec, and lemon juice. I don't know what it is about lime+rum that makes this drink more Bostony.

Also, the recipe for this drink ends up being a little under 3 oz. That makes for a pretty empty-looking cocktail glass, so I kept the same proportions and bulked it up a little to fill the glass. It did make me a little tipsy, though. Tee-hee.

Recipe:
.75 oz brandy (Raynal VSOP)
.75 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
.75 oz Triple Sec
.5 oz lime juice

The Bajito

It's springtime in the San Francisco Bay Area, which means that the days are getting longer, the rains are plentiful, and green things start to grow. And in my case, green things include mint. A lot of mint. So much mint, in fact, that I had to dig up quite a bit of it in order to rescue my garden from its threatening advances. But I saved a big bouquet for mojitos, and this drink.

I really like mojitos. Mint, lime, rum. Simple, but delicious. It's why I planted that darn mint in the first place. So this drink already sounded interesting. It's a Bajito.

The recipe goes as follows:

4 fresh mint leaves (spearmint from the garden)
4 fresh basil leaves (from the grocery store--my basil hasn't grown yet)
5 slices lime
1 Tbsp simple syrup
3 oz dark rum (Gosling's Black Seal)

Muddle mint, basil, lime, and sugar in a shaker. Add ice and rum. Shake and strain into an ice-filled glass.

Admittedly, the appearance of this drink is, well, a bit like muddy water. But it was DAMN GOOD. The only downside here is that the drink is pretty strong, so one sucks it right down in about two minutes, lips smacking.

I decided to make another version.
This one was made like a regular mojito, by muddling the herbs and lime right into the glass, topping with ice, rum, and some club soda to stretch out the experience. Still pretty damn good, plus you get to eat the leaves when all the tasty drink is gone.

It looks even worse, though. It looks...as if one just dunked a glass right into a swamp, scooped up some murky water and riverbed plantlife, and added a stirrer.

Boston Cooler

A classic Collins drink here. Cool and refreshing, it hardly makes you feel like you are imbibing alcohol. I'm a big fan.

Recipe:
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp simple syrup
2 oz Club soda
2 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
Club Soda or Ginger ale to top

Combine lemon juice, syrup, and club soda in a collins glass. Stir. Fill with ice and then add the rum. Top the drink with club soda or ginger ale. Garnish with a spiral of orange or lemon peel. I like using the lemon peel, as you can cut the spiral first and then use the lemon for juice. Nice and efficient.

Borinquen

Another blender drink here. But this one is at least a natural-looking color.

It wasn't bad, although I think it doesn't need the blending. I should try it again on the rocks. Also, the citrus overpowers the passion fruit flavor, which I think it what makes this drink special. So I must remember, at some point, to remake this on the rocks, extra passion.

Recipe:
1.5 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
1 Tbsp Passion Fruit Syrup (Trader Joe's)
1 oz lime juice
1 oz Orange Juice
1 tsp 151-proof rum (Bacardi 151)

Combine with .5 cup ice and blend. Pour into an old-fashioned glass.

Bolero

After the relative success of the Black Devil, I had high hopes for the Bolero. After all, not only does it have a cooler name, it also has some apple brandy in it. So I don't know why I didn't like it. It was just so very...alcoholic. Maybe it would be a better second, or maybe third drink, and I had it on a sober palate.

This recipe gets the award for Most Precisely Tiny Measurement, in the 1/4 teaspoon of sweet vermouth.

Recipe:
1.5 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
.25 oz Apple Brandy (Calvados Morin)
.25 tsp sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)

Stir with ice and pour into a cocktail glass. My version was shaken and is therefore somewhat cloudy in the photo. But still a very nice color.

Blue Hawaiian

After a couple of decent drinks, rum's trashy side is back with a vengeance, in the form of the Blue Hawaiian.

Not only is it blue, it is also cloyingly sweet. And blended.

As such things tend to be, they are fairly yummy but very undignified. The garnish vanishes into the mixture as if into quicksand. And the fact that I have to use a blender not only involves more cleanup but creates an unpardonable interruption to our watching of Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade.

But I did discover that cream of coconut is a fabulous substance. I don't usually care for coconut, but this stuff is a thick, glycerin-like mixture that is wonderful to lick off the spoon. Mmmmmm.

Anyway, t he recipe:
1 oz light rum (Bacardi SIlver)
1 oz Blue Curacao (Hiram Walker)
2 oz pineapple juice
1 oz cream of coconut (Mmmmmmm spoon-licky-licious.)

Blend with 1 cup of ice, and pour into a highball glass. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry. Watch the garnish drown and look forward to rescuing it at the end of the drink.

Black Devil

After the Apple Pie No. 1, my liver hadn't taken enough yet. So I gave it the Black Devil.

Simple enough here. It's a rum martini. Oh, but with a black olive to make it more...um...piratey.

Pretty damn drinkable. Although I made my husband eat the olive. I just don't like them.

Recipe:

2 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
.5 oz dry vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
Stir with ice and pour into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a black olive.

Apple Pie No. 1

Finally, a drink I can get behind!

In the search for some cherry and apple brandies I finally managed to finally make it to Beltramo's. Now I feel an utter fool. They are maybe a mile from BevMo, but with a vastly better selection and equivalent prices. I shall frequent them exclusively from now on.

Anyway, backtracking a bit again, I am finally able to make Apple Pie No. 1. I am predisposed to like anything served in a cocktail glass, even if it happens to contain grenadine. This one was incredibly tasty, but I mjst admit, as I had it after a number of other drinks my palate was less than reliable. I think I just like Calvados.

Oh yeah, and the foam on the top looks like a scary sideways ghost wearing a hat.

Recipe:
.75 oz Light rum (Bacardi Silver)
1 tsp Apple Brandy (Calvados Morin)
.5 tsp grenadine (Rose's)
1 tsp lemon juice

Bahama Mama, Take 2

So I decided to give the Bahama Mama another chance. I measured carefully. I used Kahlua instead of the homemade coffee liqueur. The only ingredient not precisely in the recipe was the Malibu + simple syrup instead of coconut liqueur, which I don't think is that much of a stretch.

Still, it's awful. Slightly less coffee-y than before, but the basic taste is the same. I think what I'm objecting to here is the lemon and Kahlua. It has the aftertaste of coffee that's been sitting in the carafe for too long. Acrid and dark.

Lemon + coffee = BAD.

Bahama Mama

The Bahama Mama looks like one of those drinks that gets made at the end of a party when all the good mixers are gone and only novelty liquors are left.

I'm starting to regret starting with rum drinks.

Anyway, I feel that I may owe this drink another try, as I made a substitution or two that may have affected things.

Anyway, the recipe:

.5 oz Dark Rum (Myers)
.5 oz Coconut Liqueur
(Ok, here I have to explain my behavior. Coconut-flavor I usually find to be horrible. I also feared that this drink, like the last few, would be over-sugared and under-boozed and therefore substituted the last dregs of my bottle of Malibu instead. This may have been an error.)
.25 oz 151-proof rum
.25 oz Coffee liqueur (I used a concoction that my friend Chris gave me, which is super-coffee. I think that this recipe probably needed the more mellow flavor of Kahlua.)
.5 oz Lemon juice
4 oz Pineapple juice

Shake it all with ice and pour into an ice-filled highball glass. Garnish with a strawberry or cherry.

My version is, well, icky. I think it's the homemade coffee liqueur, which although nice on its own (thanks, Chris) or in a white or black russian, doesn't belong in a fruity drink. If I manage to finish it, I'll make another with more careful measuring and Kahlua. I'm still going to use Malibu, however, since I don't have coconut liqueur and don't plan to buy any, but maybe I'll add a dash of simple syrup to better approximate.

2 for 1: Beachcomber and Bermuda Triangle

I'm officially committed to the comprehensive Mr. Boston tour. However, for the sake of frequent posting I'm going to have to backtrack a little bit later on when I get a chance to find some apple brandy, which our local BevMo had none of.

Anyway, our first drink is the Beachcomber. Think of this one as a tropical Cosmopolitan, basically. Both have a clear spirit, triple sec, and a citrus. However, this version couldn't leave well enough alone and adds both grenadine and simple syrup. Oh yes, and a sugared rim. Whoo-hoo, screw you, Atkins!

The recipe calls for a lime wheel garnish which makes no sense to me, as there is no lime in the drink. But now I do have pineapple on hand, and I loooooooove pineapple. So in it went.

This time my husband was joining me, so I made a double. I sipped mine slowly, but my husband gulped his down in about two minutes. I suppose that for a strong drink, it does go down smoothly.

Recipe:
1.5 oz light rum (Bacardi Silver)
.5 oz Triple Sec (DeKuyper's)
.5 oz Grenadine (Rose's)
.5 oz simple syrup
.5 oz lemon juice
Sugar the rim of a cocktail glass. Shake with ice and strain into the glass. Garnish with lime (or in my case, delicious, lovely pineapple).

Next up, the Bermuda Triangle. Sounds like an exciting, dangerous, mysterious drink, right?
Wrong.
What can I say? It's a Fuzzy Navel but with a little spiced rum. A tiny bit of spiced rum. Not even enough booze to get you started. A resounding "Meh."

Recipe:
1 oz Peach Schnapps (DeKuyper)
.5 oz Spiced Rum (Captain Morgan)
3 oz orange juice.

Pour over ice into an old-fashioned glass. There you go. Now you have to drink it. Hah.