TIP OF THE DAY: Sip Some Aged Rum
The Caribbean is home to rum, a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugar cane. The clear distillate is then aged in oak barrels for various lengths of time, the process that creates the different types of rum.
Your acquaintance with rum may be via a Daiquiri, Hurricane, Mojito, Piña Colada or Rum and Coke (a.k.a. Cuba Libre). But today’s National Rum Day, the day to discover premium aged rum, hand-crafted and aged for years to produce the kind of complex spirit that is sipped and savored neat or on the rocks, like a fine Cognac. So today’s tip is to stretch beyond your favorite, familiar rum drink and enjoy some fine aged rum—premium rum. You don’t have to buy a bottle: Simply meet a friend for a drink. TYPES OF RUM There are different grades and variations of rum. Most rum is produced with molasses, but some use sugar cane juice instead. Some are lightly aged and used as cocktail mixers; some are aged for years and become premium rums—the “sipping” rums. |
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Want to make your own spiced rum? Here’s a recipe from Liquor.com. |
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OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THE NATIONAL RUM DAY How about: A Rum & Coke ice cream float: Add a shot of light rum to a glass of cola, and top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (or rum raisin ice cream!). A piece of rum cake, dense cake made with dark rum. Here’s a recipe if you’d like to bake your own. FOOD TRIVIA: YO-HO-HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM This famous song, formally called “Dead Man’s Chest” is a fictional sea-song that originated in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel, Treasure Island (1883). Stevenson only wrote the chorus: Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest– The words were expanded into a poem, “Derelict,” by Young E. Allison, which was published in the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1891. Here’s the whole story. |