Magens Bay

 

This is a pretty cocktail named after a beautiful place. Magens Bay is a white sand beach on St. Thomas Island in the Caribbean. Besides being a fittingly rummy cocktail, it is pretty much a classic recipe with orange juice and apricot brandy. You could just about do this cocktail with any spirit and it would taste the same--which isn't a bad idea. 

The thing is that apricot brandy tends to direct the flavor in a sweet and fruity way. Fresh ingredients help make sure that the drink is balanced and interesting. A pure liqueur cocktail with apricot brandy tends to be overly sweet, and that's not the kind of thing you want to drink when you are relaxing in a beach cabana. 

• 1 1/2 oz. light rum
• 1/2 oz. apricot brandy
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. lime juice
• sugar syrup to taste (1/2 oz. is appropriately sweet)
• orange slice
• maraschino cherry

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with fruit.

Mr. Nate's St. Thomas Special

So there's this Mr. Pip's St. Thomas Special drink that has its roots on the island, but as I can tell, isn't really attributed to a real person. Since I'm not a real person either, in that nobody knows who I am, I have my own contribution to St. Thomas Island's cocktail culture.

St. Thomas is all about boat drinks, tiki drinks that are simplified for quick production and consumption. They don't require tiki mugs, and are often served on the beach in plastic cups. I'm at least trying to bring back a little tacky class to this type of cocktail.

This is a dry tiki with more juice than spice than the Mr. Pip's. It is also less desert-like. See what you think.

• 2 oz. light rum
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 1/2 oz. guava nectar
• 1/2 oz. sugar syrup
•  mint sprig

 Build drink in a tiki mug full of ice and stir. Garnish with mint sprig.

Cuba Libre / Rum And Coke

Take a Rum & Coke and add a lime slice and you have the classic Cuban spy thriller cocktails, the Cuba Libre. It was the signal flag of reporters and spies meeting in the Havana Hotel to discuss the end of the Spanish occupation of Cuba.

It's so simple to make and really so basic that it is beautiful. I found it to be especially good for afternoon beach drinking in the Caribbean, where you really need to pair down ingredients and tools to keep things simple.

• 2 oz. light rum
• cola
• lime slice

Build cocktail in a double Old Fashioned Glass with ice. Top with cola and stir. Garnish with lime slice.