bringing drinks to life

I was really surprised at the response to our competition to win a bottle of El Dorado 12yo and 2 tickets for RumFest. Actually scrap that, with a really good bottle of rum on the line and forty quids worth of tickets I guess there was a reasonable incentive to send us a recipe. I was really happy to have so many excuses to drink autumnal rum cocktails! Admittedly the B&T drinks cabinet is now running a little low on El Dorado rums but it was all in a good cause.

After much sipping, and comparing of notes we finally managed to narrow the entrants down to just 10 that we thought were worthy of being added to the Bitters & Twisted drinks database, and the creators of those drinks had their names thrown into a hat so that a winner could be drawn at random… and the winner is…. You’ll have to read on to find out I’m afraid.

The whole point of this competition was that the weather here in the UK has definitely taken a turn for the colder and the leaves are changing colour as we speak. While I am a big fan of sunshine I am also a big fan of all those autumn flavours especially when you throw them at a good bottle of rum and see what sticks! I am pleased to say I have a few new autumn drinks that I will be turning to over the next couple of months, and one that might just see me the whole way through winter. Sadly Rob Poulter didn’t win the competition, but his autumn drink definitely deserves a mention here especially as it helped propel him to Theme’s Bartender of the year recently:

The Wai-Wai rum custard (named for 1 of the 9 indigenous tribes of Guyana)

25ml single cream

25ml beaten egg

25ml pressed apple juice

7.5ml vanilla syrup

7.5ml caramel syrup

35ml El Dorado 15

Shake and strain into a chilled coupe/martini and garnish with a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon and an apple fan coated with caramelised cinnamon sugar.

Now I love rum in all its many forms and on a sunny day a Havana 3yo daiquiri is hard to beat but as soon as the weather cools I go looking for a richer more robust and full flavoured rum to play with. El Dorado really has a perfect range of rums for these sorts of autumn flavours and it was no surprise to me that people were reaching for the 12yo and 15yo for the base of their drinks. These are both lovely deep, rich rums that have fantastic spice and caramel flavours running through them. We did get a few people who chose to use the 3yo and play to its rich creamy character which seems to play especially well with orange, cinnamon and cloves. One of those that we thought definitely worked came from our good friend Nick Ord up in Leeds… once again I am sorry to say this wasn’t the winning drink, but a worthy contender that made the short list:

River of Gold:

Limoncello & Absinthe rinse

5ml Gomme (to taste)

Orange Zest

2 dashes Peychaud bitters

75ml El Dorado 3yr

Stir old fashioned style and garnish with a honey soaked cinnamon stick

It is a happy coincidence that RumFest falls at this time of year which means that in about a weeks time I will be satisfying my autumn craving for rum. I am really looking forward to seeing what is new this year. Of course catching up with a few old favourites is never a bad thing either. If you haven’t booked your tickets yet I suggest you get busy and log onto the RumFest website right now. www.ticketsource.co.uk/rumfest  hopefully we will see a lot of you there!

Now back to these drinks that we have been enjoying all week, it seems that pears, apples, red wine, and cinnamon are the flavours that most of you think of when it comes to Autumn drinks with some unusual twists being thrown at us just to keep us on our toes. The winning drink plays on some of my favourite flavours including cherries and maple syrup and was a real surprise when we tasted it for the first time.

A big congratulations go out to Paul Bradley for his excellent ‘Ron Burgundy’ we will be in touch to sort out getting you your rum and your tickets!

Ron Burgundy

40ml El Dorado 12yo

50ml Pinot Noir

15ml Cherry Heering

5ml maple syrup

2 dashes Angostura

shake and strain into a highball filled with cubed ice and garnish with a cherry and a long orange peel.

Hopefully we will see you all at RumFest and get a chance to enjoy a sip or two of El Dorado with you there. Thanks to all who submitted recipes and please check back as we will be running another competition soon… maybe with bourbon this time? Hmmmm I am already looking forward to judging that one!