Saturday, July 26, 2008

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

Anything with lime in it. Anything with ginger in it. Rum. Specifically Gosling's Black Seal Black Rum, which has been getting assorted pirates, rakehells and British sailors drunk for more than 200 years.

As some of you may well know, it's ginger (ginger beer), black rum and fresh lime juice that combine to make a Dark and Stormy, incidentally my favorite drink.

Tonight I made a DnS using super easy homemade ginger beer and I don't want to sound too pleased with myself or anything, but I do believe I acheived the Platonic Ideal of the cocktail.

Or at least the Piratical Ideal.

If you like ginger, you've got to try brewing your own ginger beer. Grate about 2 to 2.5 cups of fresh ginger (don't peel it!), put in a pot, add two cups sugar (I used organic 100% cane) and six cups water. Stir, bring to a boil and then keep it at a simmer for a couple hours until it's dark and syrupy. Store in fridge and strain the next day (I used a strainer and two folds of cheesecloth.) Store in fridge.

When ready to experience rum-laced beverage heaven, get a pint glass, fill with rum to taste (fellow pirates: not all the way!), add about a third of a cup of syrup and top off with club soda and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Then sit back, put up your feet and savor. While I think that next time I'm going to make the syrup with even more ginger (because I really like the bite of it), I have to say the clean, fresh taste of the ginger syrup was miles better than most commercially sold stuff, and was also less sweet.

So drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

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