Friday Night Frights

It's a cold, rainy Friday night, which means that it's an excellent time to stay home and try new cocktails. First up, a small tweak on the Bacardi Cocktail:

J. Wray Cocktail
0.6 oz Appleton V/X
0.5 oz J. Wray & Nephew Overproof
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz hibiscus grenadine

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

Since the first time I cracked the bottle, I've been a little bit terrified of the J. Wray. While I've read paeans to it's incredible versatility, even once diluted into a cocktail, there's something about it that smells off to me. The taste is just fine, even kind of interesting, but there's something tickling my nose unpleasantly that I can't quite put a name to. Some days I think it's a bit like off dairy products (how's that for an appealing description), but other times I think it might just be the liquorice and grass notes that other people have found. Either way, I'm now determined to forge ahead and find ways to integrate this unique rum into cocktails. I will not be deterred!

On a more pleasant note, I was flipping through Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology looking for rum drinks when I stumbled upon the Fernandito Cocktail. It calls for a healthy slug of spiced rum and seeing as I filtered a batch of homemade chocolate spiced rum earlier this week (I'll post a recipe for this spiced rum soon), it seemed like a good one to try. While I didn't want to use the full 2 oz. the recipe calls for, a little bit of substitution and a drop in the amount of liqueur resulted in a rather pleasing drink.

Fernandito Cocktail (Modified)
1 oz. Appleton V/X
0.5 oz El Dorado 3 year
0.5 oz chocolate spiced rum
0.25 oz blackberry liqueur
0.5 oz orange juice
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz simple syrup

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

While I think I shook this cocktail a bit too long, resulting in a too-dilute drink, the overall flavor was still pretty good. The chocolate and spices from the spiced rum played well with the vanilla of the ED3 and berry sweetness of the liqueur with the V/X providing a nice base for it all. Once I've made more spiced rum, I might try this with a 1:1 ratio between the V/X and spiced rums, but this less potent mixture was still a pleasure. Definitely a drink that I will be making again.