Mixology Monday LXXVI Cocktail: Special-Ti’

Special-Ti’ Cocktail.

Time for another Mixology Monday, the monthly online cocktail party. Let’s start with thanks to Fred Yarm at Cocktail ~~Virgin~~ Slut for keeping the party going and to this month’s host, the Muse of Doom at Feu de Vie (another excellent cocktail blog). The theme, a fitting one in a very hot August, is “Fire!”. Here is the announcement post and the details:

Tiki-philes have their flaming spent lime shells and scorpion bowls. Classic cocktailers have the magic of a flamed orange zest. Molecular mixologists have their Smoking Guns. …You don’t have to go full Blue Blazer, not nearly — heck, you could go full Fireball Whiskey! (or Fire Rock Pale Ale, etc.) You could riff on the Old Flame or come up with an inventive name of your own. You could even use a good firewater or burned wine. (and if you’re grilling fruit, save some for me, will ya?) In essence, bring the heat! Bring the Fire! Bring your inspiration!

Great theme. At first we thought of making a flaming tiki drink, and even ran a few fun experiments with Lemon Hart 151 in all sorts of vessels (it lights easily, btw). But after a while, we figured that we would see plenty of flaming tiki, and in better tiki bowls and cups than we have at the farm (we are working on adding to the collection). We also looked at flaming citrus peels over classics, as the announcement post suggests, but nothing really popped. But then a few days ago we used a brulee torch to make Chocolate S’more-bet Sundaes and we decided to use the torch in our Mixology Monday cocktail. Might as well use the thing…

So what to make? This part was surprisingly easy. We decided to deconstruct one of our favorite summer desserts, pineapple with lime zest and molasses, into a cocktail. We started with the garnish. We cut wedges of pineapple, coated them with dark brown sugar (turbinado or muscovado would also work), caramelized the sugar with the brulee torch and then added lime zest. You could eat this on its own and it is quite good, but a bit one-dimensional.

But we then made a hack of the standard Ti’ Punch (lime, cane syrup, rhum agricole) and dipped the caramelized pineapple wedges into the drinks and ate the pineapple. We tried a bunch of rums from dark to light, regular rum to a few types of rhum agricole. In the end, we liked Rhum Barbancourt 5-Star, an 8 year-old rhum from Haiti best. We also went light on cane syrup, as we learned that the caramelized sugar from the pineapple would mix into the drink and sweeten as we went along.

So what did we get? A successful cocktail dessert. Both the cocktail and the garnish would be OK by themselves. But when combined, the sweet acidity of the pineapple, the intense (almost buttery) rum, sour lime and deep sugar flavor all play very well together. The extra texture of the pineapple and lime zest is also welcome. Great fun and something we will make again.

So thanks again to the Muse of Doom and Fred Yarm for another great Mixology Monday. We can’t wait to see he roundup.

Special-Ti’:

Ingredients:

Garnish:

Pineapple wedges
Dark brown sugar
Lime zest
Wooden or metal skewers

Cocktail:

2 oz. rum (Barbancourt 5-Star)
1 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. cane syrup (or rich simple syrup)

Assemble:

Push the skewers lengthwise through the center of the pineapple wedges.
Liberally sprinkle the pineapple wedges with the brown sugar and then caramelize the sugar with a brulee torch (or place on a baking sheet under a very hot broiler for about 30 seconds, or until brown). Quickly sprinkle on the lime zest before the caramelized sugar hardens.
Place the pineapple wedges in the fridge for a few minutes to help the caramelized sugar harden.
Meanwhile, combine the rum, lime juice and cane syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well-chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or coupé.
Garnish the cocktail with the pineapple wedge and serve.
We suggest starting by dipping and eating the pineapple and then finishing the remaining cocktail. Enjoy.