After 17 days of counting down various wonderful whisky bottles, my palate could use a break. And apparently that means “make a cocktail” to my palate. And if I’m doing to make a cocktail, might as well make a @zaumstudio inspired cocktail worthy of a certain RCM detective.

- 2 parts bonded/100+ proof bourbon
- 1 part Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum
- 1 egg white
- 1 part fresh/hand-squeezed orange juice
- 1 part simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker, shake dry with violent level of effort. Crack one large cube of ice, add to shaker. Shake again, violently. Strain and serve. Garnish with orange twist.

The perfect Après Le Monde, Le Gris.

This is a pure one-and-done drink. I sincerely cannot stress enough how deceptively overproofed/boozy this recipe is. I used Wild Turkey 101 for my bourbon (because of course I did) given how I love the way it plays with citrus, but there’s some magical alchemy happening between the W&N Overproof Rum and the WT101. The Jamaican banana funk in the rum has found its soulmate in the spice of the bourbon, and what results is this wonderful medley of orange, funky banana, light sugar, mild oak, and baking spice. It somehow reminds me of Christmas and summer at the same time. The egg white here is also absolutely critical — not only does it deliver the texture a truly great sour cocktail needs, but it’s the emulsifying glue of this whole enterprise. This recipe drinks like a boozy, unbalanced mess without it, in my experiments at least.

Much like a certain aforementioned amnesiac RCM detective struggling with recall, I can’t remember the history of this recipe either. I do know listening to some @how2drink episodes on the history of rum and tiki cocktails played into it, but much like the Flaming Moe, this drink somewhat made itself.

Or to put it another way, my fingers knew what number to dial, all I had to do was pick up the phone.

Image courtesy of Jon who also writes on Low Class & High Proof.

Low Class & High Proof

I learned how to make cocktails watching Danger 5