The day I found my muddle!

Hi guys, sorry it’s been such a long time, but I’ve been sweating it out in the middle of a heat wave. 12 days over 38c (100f) degrees in a row and I’m exhausted!

However I’m not one to moan about the heat, but rather embrace it and use it as a good excuse to enjoy some frosty cold rum drinks (providing my freezer holds up).

I decided that to truly be a good cocktail maker I was going to need to upgrade the old rolling pin to a more standard for of mixing device, a muddler. Not that I needed an excuse to escape to the cool, air-conditioned stores of the local shopping centre, but I decided that to find my muddler this would indeed be the perfect place to start.

Unfortunately for me, my muddler hunting adventures were continually stomped on store after store by “complete bar kits” and “ultimate cocktails makers” containing no more than a corkscrew and a shaker! I was devastated.

Luckily for me, my girlfriend (known to some as Lil Miss Rum Drinker) is not just a pretty face. “Why don’t you ask a bartender where you might find one?” she questioned – what brilliance and yet another excuse to go and try a new rum!

That night we headed off to our local cocktail bar and asked the bartender where we may find a muddler. He explained that he got all of his from alcohol reps as promotions but gave us a few places to try and we thanked him.

Just as we were about to leave he calls out to us and says “wait, I may have found something for you”. We venture back to the bar to find it… an ancient, wooden, bar hardened, rum strengthened beaten up old muddler from the deepest darkest recesses of the store room! Ooh if this muddler could talk what stories it would tell! “Here you can have this one, we can’t use it any more…” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – a real life muddler from a real life cocktail bar (ok ok, I know small things…) but I was happy.

Little Miss Rum Drinker carried out our new muddler in her hand bag so not to attract any unwanted attention and we made our way home.

Now that I have my muddler at the ready, I have no excuses not to let the cocktails flow! I will be uploading pictures of my acquired muddler in my next post so you can see this little beauty in all its glory. The first addition to my Rum Room collection of Rum Memorabilia!

Stay tuned.

Negrita Spice Carribean Rum

Well this weekend I had another party, and another chance to share my rum experiences with some more friends. The choice for this weekend was Negrita Spice Carribean Rum.

Negrita Spice Rum is based on dark Carribean rum and has a selection of exotic spices mixed in for good measure. The result is really strong flavour, and after a couple of drinks, had to make a less potent mixture (again with dry ginger and lime) as the flavour became over powering. That could have had something to do with my friend being a bit un-attentive whilst pouring the drink (never a good idea to confuse dry ginger with more rum…)

Not a bad rum though, good for a few with your friends, would be interesting to see what its like in a cocktail!

My rating 3 barrels!

My night with Captain Henry Morgan

The afternoon started off slowly with a nice drive into the suburbs to the liquor store on the way to my friend’s house party.

Upon stopping at the store I had some trouble finding the Rum Drinks section, but after a few minutes of browsing I found it shining in all its glory.

The first rum I looked at was Captain Morgan Black Label Origional Rum, seeing it was going to be a long night and I didn’t fancy a killer headache the next morning, I continued browsing hoping to find a lighter shade of rum. (Also I didn’t want to scare my friends off with the strong rich flavour of the darker rums, best to ease them in!)

As I moved along the shelf I came accross a fancy looking bottle with a pirate (not unlike captain Jack Sparrow of Black Pearl fame – who I find absolutely hilarious I might add – “why the rum?”).

This looked like a good one and after reading that Captain Henry Morgan was “possessed with great charm” winning him “respect of noblemen and the loyalty of his crew“… I felt sure I would be the most popular guy at the party!

So anyway, I like my Rum Drinks to be mixed with dry ginger ale and fresh lime, due to the fact that limes are quite expensive at the moment and that parties are for catching up with old friends not spending half the night slicing and squeezing limes for my drink, I grabbed a squeezy bottle of lime juice (insert screams of horror here – I hear you folks!).

Next on the agenda was a big bag of party ice (more screams…) and a bottle of Diet Dry Ginger Ale – it tastes the same as regular ginger ale and you consume less calories so you can drink more*, its a win win situation!

I set sail to the party which started at 4. I shared my Captain Henry around with a few guys, introducing them to the wonders of rum, which they we very grateful of. However it seemed I was the only one drinking more than a couple of glasses of Henry’s brew and by 2am supplies were getting a little low and my concern for my wellbeing in the morning was growing!

Time to pull the pin then, and hop into my makeshift sofa fold out couch for the night (I highly advise pre-arranging this before a big night of sampling fine rums) and off to la la land I went.

9am I woke after a good nights sleep and braced myself for the inevitable onslaught of head thumping…and to my surprise – no headache! It must have been all those secret Jamaican herbs and spices that they add to the rum, and their secret healing qualities!

After bacon and eggs breakfast and a nice cup of coffee, I set off for home happy that the night I shared my Captain Morgan Original Spiced Gold with my friends really was gold!

My Rating of Captain Henry Morgan’s Original Spiced Gold: 4 barrels!

* Dry Ginger folks not rum! I don’t recommend or encourage binge drinking.