Recipe
- 1.5oz cask strength rum (Foursquare 2004)
- .75oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino sweet vermouth
- 2 dashes Bittercube blackstrap bitters
- 1 dash Honest John Bitters Co orange bitters
Stir all ingredients with ice and strain over a fresh large cube. Garnish with a brandied cherry.
About
So I hear it’s National Rum Day? Well, mix up your favorite classic cocktail and swap in some rum! Rum is not just for tiki, and here I have a delicious Rum Manhattan!
Lots of rums on the market are flavored/spiced or sweetened without any indication of such on the label, which generally leads people to assume rum is naturally sweeter than it actually is. Not only does this warp people’s baseline perception of rum as a spirit, sometimes the additives are used to distract from a lower quality spirit.
When subbing in for spirits like bourbon or rye (which have specific regulations prohibiting such additives), it’s important to use a quality rum with no or minimal added flavors and sugar, otherwise it’s not quite a straight sub without reevaluating the balance of the original recipe. I’m not explicitly against sweetened rums, but it’s important to recognize it as such to achieve proper balance in recipes or just when looking for a dram to suit your mood!
Back to this – here I used the bangin’ Foursquare cask-strength rum. As with all rums produced and bottled in Barbados, Foursquare 2004 contains no sugar or flavoring, and at 59% abv, this one really packs a punch. The beautiful flavor of the rum really shines, surrounded by complementary complexity from the vermouth and bitters.