It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…

Actually it was just a dark and stormy afternoon, and then the skies cleared a little, but hang with me, I’m headed somewhere. My husband plays upright bass in a rockabilly band. He has the quintessential bass player personality; calm and cool, and not one to grab the spotlight, he provides the groove around here. He makes a mean classic cocktail, for example.

One of them is a Dark ‘n’ Stormy, a Bermudian mix of Gosling’s Black Seal dark rum and Barritt’s ginger beer. 

To me a Dark ‘n’ Stormy tastes like 1975. Maybe it’s because back then, when my parents would have cocktails, I’d get to have a Shirley Temple which has ginger ale in it. Tasting my husband’s Dark ‘n’ Stormy, suddenly I’m in a wood-paneled bar of a golf and country club, the women have big, frosted Angie Dickinson hair and the men are wearing narrow flat-front polyester pants. They serve toasty BLTs there with frilly cocktail toothpicks and I’m drinking a ginger ale or a Shirley Temple. Crazy how taste memory works.

In that ‘Shirley Temple’ vein (of ginger ale and grenadine), I grabbed the extra half-can of ginger beer from my husband’s drink and made a mocktail I dubbed a ‘JamJar Bizarre’. Katie, master crafter over at JamJar Bizarre , told me her favorite summer drink after a day in the garden is ginger beer and cranberry, so I named it after her (hey, it’s my bar!). It was tart and had a little spicy kick from the ginger beer which I loved, and as you can imagine, it would be perfectly thirst-quenching on a hot day.

For the Dark ‘N’ Stormy:

1 1/2 oz. of Gosling’s Black Seal Dark Rum

4-6 oz. of Barritt’s Ginger Beer

lime wedge garnish, optional

Pour over ice.

Note: Gosling’s actually trademarked the ‘Dark ‘n’ Stormy’ moniker. Today, they recommend using their own brand of ginger beer but purists will accept nothing less than Barritt’s. Regardless of which ginger beer you use, stick with the Gosling’s rum for this one. It’s unique blend of rums from around the Caribbean has a slightly charred character which has hints of vanilla and caramel and is the hallmark of this classic summer mixer.