That bottle of rum in your hands at the liquor store, the one you are considering paying almost 80$ for, is not what you think. You might assume you are holding alcohol distilled from a sugar cane by-product with nothing added, except maybe some time in a cask, but you would be wrong. In perhaps 90% of the cases you would be wrong.
It was not our typical island trip. I hesitated to bring diving gear and at the end of the day decided against it. Mostly out of temperature and currents concerns, that was probably wise.
L’Isle Verte is a small island situated across the Saguenay Fjord close to the St-Lawrence river’s south bank. It’s the kind of place where if you don’t like the weather you just have to wait fifteen minutes and it is only accessible by a tide timed ferry. Big ferry if there’s a car to shift, small boat if it’s only people. The ride can be smooth as glass or really really bumpy. As in, please go inside the cabin sir, it’s about to shake a little. Sailors have cool euphemism.
This is not a serious rum review, it’s more of a rum chat, just sayin’.
Having rum at 10 in the morning does not make you an alcoholic, it makes you a pirate, or so I like to tell myself. Not that I frequently drink before 10 AM, I think the last time might have been in Belize, and there were circumstances. Set your mind at ease though, the above picture and related activities happened around a much more sedate five o’clock in the afternoon. We are not savages, most of the time.
The gimlet… what a drink. It has many things I enjoy in a cocktail, gin, the taste of lime (sort of), an intriguing colour and the British Navy. It is also the only current exception to drinkskultur rule #5. Shaken together vigorously it is delightful, refreshing, crisp and packs quite a punch. In order for you to have one while reading this, yes I do insist, I’ll start with the recipe.
I was originally going to name this post “Diving With the Mohawks”, then “Every Dive Makes You Better”, but I settled on “Cold Ass Honky”, because I really, really was. Not in a Macklemore way either, more in the thermocline and water at 5 degrees centigrade (41F) kind of way. Without exaggerating one tiny bit, it felt like little needles of burning pain all over my body. You know you’re in trouble when you’re the only guy at the bottom without a dry suit. Still well worth it though, that’s diving for you.