Winter (Difford's Guide Recipe)

 

Allspice, ginger, rich rum--what else do you need to make a cocktail taste like all the flavors we love in winter? I'm a big fan of this drink, mostly because it is another one of the great cocktails I've found on Difford's guide that combine tiki ingredients and a classic cocktail feel. You get the coup presentation with a simple piece of candied ginger garnish. Then there's the dark, colonial style rum and all the burst of the tropics from allspice dram and Angostura bitters. 

I'm showing off George Bowman's small batch rum in this cocktail. The Bowman distillery in Virginia doesn't make their own rum, but they bottle this blend from the Caribbean. It tastes a lot like Jamaican or Guyana, so very spicy and heavy oak and vanilla notes. It is the kind of thing you expect colonial Americans to pay top dollar for during the rum trade.

There's still a few months of winter left, so be sure to make this cocktail and enjoy it. Of course you could do it in the summer, but I'd rather make it a Swizzle with the same ingredients. That would absolutely work. 

• 2 oz. dark Jamaican rum (Bowman's used)
• 3/4 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. sugar syrup
• 1/6 oz. (2 tsp.) ginger brandy (homemade used)
• 1/6 oz. (2 tsp.) pimento dram/ allspice dram (homemade used)
• dash Angostura bitters
• piece of candied ginger

Combine liquid ingreients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with piece of ginger.