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.
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.
Perhaps because the Universe has a sense of humour, I suspect it does, I have something of an empirical streak in me. I’ve always been interested in what I drink. Its history, nature, and thus the quest for the best. Not THE BEST as in experts and pundits and lifestyle magazines for men declare, but my best, my favourite I should say. Okay, enough kidding myself, more likely that tendency is just a fancy excuse for trying a lot of different alcohols. I figure it looks a lot less disreputable to be engaged in a exploration of rums and the search for how provenance affects taste, at ten in the morning, than just swilling back a shot in your underwear and making pirate jokes.
At Diving & Chillin’ we take our drinkskultur pretty seriously. After all, life is too short for crappy cocktails and it’s really not that demanding to bring your game to near olympian levels. It’s time to raise your post diving drinks from mere refreshments to potions worthy of being entered in your logbook. Now there’s a thought.
Maybe you don’t like margaritas.
Possibly, you’ve had too much way too cheap tequila during your formative years. Perhaps the only margaritas you’ve ever met are the ones served in giant buckets with tons of crushed ice, super sweet syrup, more cheap tequila, and not a real lime in sight, the kind of drink that leaves you with brain freeze and a profound sense of shame.