"Should cocktail recipes be legally limited to a particular product or brand?" Photograph from nate_marsh on Flickr In case you thought bibulous brand-battles were limited to Coke vs. Pepsi, take a look at the storm that's brewing regarding the venerable rum drink, the Dark 'n' Stormy. As Jonathan Miles noted in his New York Times Shaken & Stirred column last month, the Dark 'n' Stormy is made with Gosling’s Black Seal rum and ginger beer—that's it. But this level of specificity isn't a case of brand placement. Gosling’s filed two trademark certificates that dictate the precise ingredients in a Dark 'n' Stormy, and needless to say, one of those ingredients is the company’s signature brand of Bermuda rum. During an...
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"When you’re trying to buy a bottle for less than what you used to spend on coffee every day, there are some things you need to be prepared to live without." ©iStockphoto.com/monkeyphoto Oh, those heady, innocent days of early 2008. Sure, the economy was losing parts as it wheezed down the road and the real estate market was looking pretty sour, but how bad could it really get, right? Around last year’s tax day I put up a post called Cheap(er) Drinks: Tips for Enjoyable Drinking Without Going Broke. Well, compared to now, April '08 was downright rosy, and in this post-Madoff era, "drink cheap" has become the imbiber’s new mantra. The most recent round of the Mixology Monday drink-blog...
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Editor's note: On Wednesday afternoons, Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) stops by with his weekly cocktail column. Today, rum. "While it's hard for many rum drinkers to get too excited about mass-market spiced rums, the beauty of the situation is that spiced rum is so easy to make at home." Captain Henry Morgan. Wikimedia Commons Despite the fact that Henry Morgan was a notorious brigand—with all the vicious unpleasantness that comes along with the job—many rum drinkers find it hard to consider the spirit named after him as much more than a joke. As Eric Felten noted in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, the popular Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Rum has typically been associated with imbibing more for quantity than...
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A few weeks ago, I pondered if this was the Summer of Rum, but ponderin’ time is over. Go decorate the sugarcane tree, sing pina colada carols and hang your tiki mugs by the fireplace because National Rum Day is coming up quick. Who designates these things? Who knows. But the authority thought this Saturday, August 16 was the right day. Not that anybody needed another excuse to mix a mojito on a mid-August weekend. Just in case you did, know that you'll be participating in a nationwide culinary tradition that dates all the way back to, well, at least last year....
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Summer was practically made for rum, and in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, drinks correspondent Eric Felten delved into the growing world of light rum. Light Rum Rums from Appleton, Bacardi, and Mount Gay. Rum is perhaps the most diverse spirit on the market, with each producing island or region utilizing a unique style and method that results in a dizzying variety of rums, from those that are almost as light as vodka to rich, smoky rums the color of crude oil and redolent of molasses. While light rums are a relatively small subset of the rum category, they bear a substantial part of the market weight—thanks to the mojito craze and the never-ending demand for rum-and-Cokes and assorted fruity...
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