News of the Day

    The Golden Rum Barrel awards from the London Rum Festival have been made official and our own Key West Blogger Mike Streeter has won the "Best American Blog" Golden Rum Barrel Award.   The other awards and the full story can be seen from http://rumconnection.com/uncategorized/golden-rum-barrel-awards/  with the complete story.      This is big news for Key Wester's because this makes 2 major awards for Key West Rumstylers this year.

     The day in the Rum Lab yesterday was another challenging one working with the Licorice flavored Aguardiente as the subject of the day.    As expected this one was difficult to make things work, few things seem to work with the licorice in Aguardiente.    We were triumphant though in coming up with several really tasty cocktails from this interesting "rum".

Aguardiente Sazarac

• 1/2 oz. Aguardiente
• 12 oz. Appleton VX Rum
• 1/2 oz. Cane Syrup
• 1/2 oz. Water
• 2 Dashes of Bitters

Place all the ingredients except the Bitters in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled.   Put the bitters in the rocks glass and swirl around and dump them out.    fill the glass with ice and strain the shaker into the glass and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Venezuela Hybrid

• 1/2 oz Aguardiente
• 1 1/2 oz. Mount Gay Black Rum
• 1/2 oz. Cane Syrup
• Splash of Orange Juice
• Splash of Tonic Water
• Dash of Bitters

Place all the ingredients in a shaker and shake until chilled and strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.   Garnish with an orange wheel.

For a rainy day it was a fun one in the Rum Lab and getting out on the water for and adventuresome trip to the Hurricane Hole for a few after lab cocktails with our bartender friends Nicole and Paul.     The weather "forced us to stay a bit longer than we planed, but it lifted just in time and we scurried back home for some much needed dinner and rest from the day.     By the way it is still raining for the fourth day in a fow here in Key West this morning.   Blaaaaaaaaaaaaah.      ;o)