Recipe

• 2oz aged rum (this is the highlight of the show, so choose wisely)
• .25oz simple syrup (or Demerara syrup if you want to go the extra mile)
• 2 dashes orange bitters (recommend Regan’s here. Angostura aromatic bitter is good as well)

Stir with ice and strain over a large ice cube in an old fashioned glass. Express the oils of an orange peel across the surface and rim.

About

So there’s good reason why I’ve suddenly fallen in fast and furious love with rum. If you’ve always been a whiskey sipper or Old Fashioned connoisseur, and never really thought of rum as anything other than the base for fruity sweet drinks or mojitos, you’re in for a real treat.

Step 1 – select a quality aged rum (note: you can’t judge rum quality or age by its color, as it’s quite common to charcoal-filter aged rums to remove color, or add caramel color to unaged/young rums) Also, despite their darker colors, Captain Morgan/Sailor Jerry/Kraken/most spiced rums are *not* aged rums, and neither are Gosling’s/Myers black rums. See here for some recommendations.

Step 2 – assemble your classic Old Fashioned, replacing your favorite whiskey for rum.

Step 3 – Discover the world of rum and enjoy. In the classic old fashioned, the spirit is the highlight of the cocktail, and in this case, it was so good and easy to drink that I accidentally chugged this the other day in about a minute (literally).