Tag: Jamaicarum

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Mai Tai Monday: Hamilton Breezeway Blend Rum

Whenever I get a new bottle of rum, I always make a Mai Tai with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s expensive or cheap, or even if the rum isn’t really intended to be used for that cocktail. Sometimes you find things out about the rum when you taste in the Mai Tai format, along with the lime and sweeteners that serve to provide a foundation for the cocktail.

Such was the case with the new Hamilton Breezeway Blend, named in honor of Spike Marble’s Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour channel on YouTube. Ed Hamilton put together this blend and it is similar to rums such as Probitas which blend a lighter style rum along with a funky rum from Jamaica. In this case, the base of the Breezeway Blend is Hamilton White Stache, an 87 proof white rum with distillate mostly from Trinidad but also some from Guyana and the Dominican Republic. That’s combined with a smaller proportion of Hamilton Pot Still Blonde from Jamaica, which is based on a couple Worthy Park distillates that are aged 1-2 years in New York. Blonde has a ton of flavor even at 45% ABV is my favorite Hamilton rum expression.

The Breezeway Blend is being positioned rightly so as a flavorful Daiquiri rum, where light leaning rum is expected. The Mai Tai traditionally wants to use heavier and bolder rums, but I’ll be damned if the 85 proof Breezeway Blend doesn’t make for a really fine Mai Tai. This leans lighter, of course, but there’s plenty of funky Jamaican flavor and sometimes you want something that’s just a little easier to drink.

In many ways, this reminds me of what Trader Vic did when he brought the Mai Tai to Hawai’i. That original Hawaiian Mai Tai wasn’t made with long aged Jamaica rum, but used inexpensive dark Jamaican rums such as Myers’s and combined it with a light Puerto Rican so that it would be easier for tourists to drink.

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Chef Chu’s Mai Tai

Our favorite Chinese restaurant is Los Altos’ venerable Chef Chu’s. We’ve been going here for years and in addition to great food they do offer some cocktails including a Mai Tai.

The Mai Tai is billed as using “our original Mai Tai mix” which tastes a lot like Trader Vic’s Mai Tai mix if I’m being honest. The one tasted a really good, maybe due to a change in recipe or perhaps due to real sugar replacing corn syrup in the latest incarnation of the Vic’s retail product.

Chef Chu’s uses light and dark Myers’s rum, which is perfectly reasonable to me as I consider the Myers’s white rum to be under-appreciated and quite affordable if you can find it. Mai Tais that are nothing but pineapple juice are kind of awful, but a light touch as with this one can be quite nice.

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Smuggler’s Cove Birthday Rum and Fun

After drinks at Last Rites we took a chance by going to Smuggler’s Cove, where lines to enter aren’t uncommon especially on the weekends. Thankfully, we got right in and found some comfy seats upstairs in the Hut. This is definitely the best place at the Cove for conversation, made all the better by running into our mutual friends David and Amy.

As a birthday treat, I ordered an old Samaroli rum from Jamaica. Distilled in ’92, making this almost nearly as old as I am. This was some amazing rum, so full of flavor as you’d expect from a 52% ABV rum aged for 25 years. I’m a member of the Rumbustion Society at the Cove and though I’m not anywhere near the 2000+ rums some folks have tried if I’m here I try to spoil myself with something great. I ended up killing this limited edition bottle, which means it shall never return.

As we exited Smuggler’s Cove we saw that there was quite a long line to get in. Our easy entry was quite a gift indeed.

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Promising Signs of Better Cocktails at Dr. Funk

We were disappointed to see downtown San Jose’s Dr. Funk have quality control issues with their cocktails over the past six months or so. Many of the drinks had been prepared in an unbalanced method, unlike the excellent drinks program that launched the bar in late 2021.

Last night we ventured down for their Traditional Tiki Tuesday event where happy hour specials are in effect all evening and where a guest DJ spins records. DJ Ship Rex was in the house, as he is now every 4th Tuesday of the month, playing an energetic set of vintage and vintage-sounding songs. Really tight.

I ordered the Mai Tai, which once again is made with Appleton Estate 12 and Smith & Cross Jamaica rums. I’m pleased to report the balance of ingredients was as it should be and that the house made orgeat still tastes pretty great. A second Mai Tai made with Planteray Xaymaca tasted just as a good, maybe a little bit more forward with funky rum notes than the standard issue.

The cocktail menu has been updated. Prices are higher (that’s $17 for a Mai Tai now, though still only $12 on happy hour) and the number of drinks has been pared back a little. There are now 16 items, notably bringing back the namesake Dr. Funk cocktail that was omitted from menus starting in late 2022. Mrs. Mai Tai had a fabulous Missionary’s Downfall, shaken and served in a highball glass. She also had the Siren’s Shore that has Amaro, mango, Smith & Cross, and coconut. Julie says this wasn’t as good as the Missionary’s Downfall but I thought it was a pleasant surprise how the herbaceous flavors worked with the coconut.

It is welcome to see Dr. Funk’s bartenders consistently using jiggers, as shown in all their recent social media posts. Some of the cocktails including the Zombie are batched and provided on tap, though there was no issue with my called rum Mai Tai. Dr. Funk has a pretty nice rum selection so there’s plenty to explore if that’s your thing.

DJ Ship Rex
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Custom Aged Rum

Mrs. Mai Tai got me this little aging barrel for Christmas and after three months I thought it was aged well enough to bottle. The blend is about two thirds Rum Fire from Jamaica, an overproof rum at 63% ABV with overripe fruit notes, and a third Saint Benevolence Rum Clairin from Haiti, an olive/brine forward rum at 50% ABV. Both pot-still rums are unaged and will put the aging process to the test.

After three months, you can see the rum has turned very dark. I estimate the “angel’s share” loss to be at least 40%, perhaps due to the barrel not exactly being made to distiller’s quality. In fact, the fragrant blend of rum is still present on the barrel today.

In this glass, this is like nothing I’ve ever tasted thanks to the blend of two flavor bombs blended together. Yet this definitely isn’t the same as the two rums together if poured straight out of the bottle. There’s a lot of traditional flavors that you’d expect from barrel aging, but still a lot of the acetone flavor you sometimes get from overproof Jamaican rums. In the Mai Tai, this potent rum made itself known immediately but the cocktail format rounded off some of the hard edges. It is delightful if you really like to chew on your rums in a Mai Tai.

The experiment isn’t over. I’ve refilled the barrel with some Puerto Rican light rum to see how the barrel and any residual flavors from the Rum Fire and Saint Benevolence affect the flavor. We’ll have an update in three months.

Next Up: the barrel was used a second time with a light Puerto Rican rum

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Primal Mai Tai Soap

Something a little different for Mai Tai Monday this week as we go back in time to 2002 and check out the cocktail bar by the artist Shag – a bar of soap! This was in a line-up that included a Dirty Martini and Cosmic Cosmopolitan but of course the one I picked up at Tiki Fest in Seattle was the Primal Mai Tai.

Shag himself provides the directions: “Transform your tub into a tiki temple with the Cocktail Bar so authentic it comes with tiny bubbles. Bask in the mystical Mai Tai mojo. Then tuck a paper umbrella behind your ear, and head for the nearest volcano.” In other words, use it as a special tropical treat in the tub. After 22 years, there’s a pleasant and mildly fragrant smell from this bar, though I did not take it for a proper “test drive” in the tub.

There’s also a “Simple Mai Tai” recipe on the back which I prepared as directed, and I even used some 2000s era Appleton V/X Jamaica rum to provide that true 2002 authenticity. This being a recipe prior to the Craft Cocktail Renaissance(™️), the recipe subs Grenadine in for the Orgeat and uses Bar Sugar rather than something richer.

Simple Mai Tai
1 oz Jamaican Rum
¼ oz Orange Curacao
1 tsp. Grenadine
1 tsp. Bar Sugar
Juice of ½ fresh Lime
Hand shake and pour over cracked ice. Garnish with lime peel and mint sprig.

I’m using high quality Liquid Alchemist Grenadine and this cocktail was not good. Simply using the proper Orgeat and using a Demerara Syrup rather than bar sugar really made this so much better. I guess we’ve learned a few things since 2002.

Got to hand it to Shag, though, the box and packaging are really nice and who wouldn’t have impulse bought one of these at Hot Topic back in 2002?

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Monymusk Rum Tasting at Oakland’s Kon-Tiki

Seemed like old times in downtown Oakland for some rum tasting and special cocktails at The Kon-Tiki. Michael Goldman was on hand to share the new lineup of Monymusk rums from Jamaica, including two aged expressions and a very interesting Overproof blend.

Michael Goldman

The Monymusk Classic Gold aged for five years is a wonderful rum that’s perfect for cocktails, with the 10 year Special Reserve being affordable enough for cocktails but better suited as a sipper. There’s plenty of traditional Jamican flavor in these two expressions, but as a 40% ABV blend of pot and column-still distillates are perhaps more approachable than some of the overly funky Jamaica rums. Compare to Appleton, not Smith & Cross.

Meanwhile, Monymusk’s Overproof is definitely within the range of White Jamaican Overproof rums you’ve seen before but leaning a little lighter due to a pot/column blend. The funky flavor is there, just a bit rounded out.

Park Lane Special

Kon-Tiki had a special menu of cocktails and I was completely blown away by the grapefruit forward highball cocktail called Park Lane Special. This featured Monymusk Overproof along with a dazzling Grapefruit punch cordial. Kon-Tiki’s Carlos Jimenez really has a winner with this one. I also tried the Jamaican Bee with Monymusk Gold, lemon, and honey – a nice daiquiri riff that shows how the Monymusk rums work well in cocktails.

It was really interesting to try the updated Monymusk product line and to see their new labels. Look for these to be available in California and other states very soon.

Cocktail Specials
Jamaican Bee
Kon-Tiki’s Vast Rum Selection