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Experiment with this luminous rum that can be had for not a lot of loot
• by By Sara White
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How’s your rum and Coke? More often than not, there isn’t much to say. It’s an easy cocktail of uninteresting taste. It is, however, highly undervalued, for the right rum with a bit of the right cola can come together to form a complex, subtly sweet and downright luxurious drink. It’s an experience you frankly can’t get with rum from the well and cola from the bar gun.
Now, there are folks who wouldn’t dream of drinking an ultrapremium rum any other way than on its own. One of them is George Randall. “Rum as a straight drink is going to become more and more popular,” said the president and owner of Randall’s Wines & Spirits in Fairview Heights and South City.
But Randall realizes that not everyone’s sipping from a snifter just yet, which is why he’ll give you a hell of an introduction: Pyrat XO Reserve, a luminous amber rum from the makers of Patrón tequila that sells for less than $30. “I’ve never not sold a bottle to someone who’s tasted it,” he said.
The fragrance alone is incredible. It’s like orange eggnog. And while the first sip may burn a bit, it’s smooth sailing afterward, with vanilla and nutmeg flavors and a bitter orange finish.
Bottled in Anguilla, Pyrat XO (pronounced “pirate”) is a blend of nine pot-still rums aged up to 15 years in French Limousin oak and specially toasted sweet American oak. The bottle itself is quite special, too: thick, hand-crafted glass (muy Patrón) stopped with a chubby cork and tied with a dashing yellow-orange ribbon.
A fine rum is a versatile spirit. It makes a terrific cocktail before dinner, of course, but it also can be used for cooking or for after dinner, like a Cognac. “How many products can you say that about?” Randall said.
He does like rum all by itself, though. Neat in a snifter. You could add a lemon twist, some rocks or a bit of water. But what if you really must mix it? “I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t have a tremendously great drink,” Randall said. “If you’ve got a good piece of meat, you’re going to have a great dinner.”
So let’s dig into the perfect rum and Coke. Each of the two beverages offers varying degrees of sugar and spice. Pyrat XO is subtly sweet and rather spicy; Coke is bubbly and sweet. You know how cinnamon tastes heavenly when you add sugar? Same could be said for our Really Rum and Coke: The sweetness of the Coke brings out the spice in the XO.
(By the way, this recipe was fine-tuned using Mexican Coke from Cherokee Street. Although it didn’t taste much different than American-made Coke Classic, there’s an irresistible romance to opening a glass bottle of Coke sweetened with cane sugar, versus corn syrup, to use with a cane spirit.)
A proportion of one and a half parts XO to two parts Coke is a solid start. There’s enough rum there to taste the vanilla and spice. The usual lime wedge seemed like a distraction in this drink (and turns it into a Cuba Libre, don’t you know), but some say mixing’s a waste anyway, so who are we to tell you not to garnish? You can experiment away ’cause you got really good rum for not much loot.
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