We recently had the pleasure of trying Ten To One’s white and dark rums. While Ten To One’s white rum will elevate any cocktail, their dark rum is made for sipping. The post Rum to Elevate Your Home Bar...
As any chef will tell you, better ingredients yield better dishes. The same is true with cocktails, starting with the base spirit. Looking at rum in particular, if you’re aiming to step up your cocktail game, the stuff used to accompany bright-colored sugary slush on spring break is not the rum you’ll want to use to stock your home bar.
We recently had the pleasure of trying Ten To One’s white and dark rums. The white rum is smooth, clean and a touch floral—perfect for a classic daiquiri, one of our favorite cocktails. Done right, they’re sweet and sour, but not overpoweringly so. The drink’s name comes from the small town of Daiquiri, Cuba, where American troops landed in the Spanish-American war. According to legend, an American mining engineer named Jennings Cox invented the cocktail when he ran out of gin, naming his well-received drink after the nearby town.
While Ten To One’s white rum will elevate any cocktail, their dark rum is made for sipping. Aged in American oak casks that formerly housed bourbon, the dark rum has more than enough flavor complexity to drink on its own over ice. For those not accustomed to drinking spirits straight, try it with a heavy splash of club soda.
Ten To One was founded by Marc Farrell, who turned to his native Trinidad and Tobago for inspiration when forming the brand. The name is a nod to a famous phrase from Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime minister, and the logo, an Ibis bird, is the island country’s national bird. The rum itself is fully Caribbean, with the white a blend of column still rum from the Dominican Republic and ester pot still rum from Jamaica. The dark rum is a blend of eight-year-old Barbados, Dominican and Trinidadian column still rums combined with high ester unaged Jamaican pot still rum adding a ton of flavor to this rum. For reference, pot stills look a bit like large tea kettles made of copper and help impart flavor, while column stills are more industrial and usually made of stainless steel, producing more neutral spirits.
There is so much you can do with both Ten To One blends, but we were excited to whip up some daiquiris using their white rum. There are a variety of daiquiri recipes out there with slightly different proportions, but the main ingredients are always the same: rum, lime juice, and sugar. After a bit of experimenting, here are two recipes that we found to be particularly delicious, but feel free to create your own riff.
Ten To One is available in many liquor stores and for purchase online at shoptentoone.com.
Classic Daiquiri
2 ounces of white rum1 ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice¾ ounce of simple syrupUsing a shaker filled with ice, shake the ingredients, then serve in a chilled coup glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.
Classic Daiquiri with a Smoky Twist
2 ounces of white rum¼ ounce of mescal¾ ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice¾ ounce of simple syrupUsing a shaker filled with ice, shake the ingredients, then serve in a chilled coup glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.
Need to make simple syrup on the fly? Fill a glass jar with ¼ cup of sugar and ¼ cup of water. Stir the water and sugar together, then heat the mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir a bit more, then pop it back in the microwave for 30 more seconds. Stir the hot liquid until the sugar grains are fully dissolved, then cool for use. Whatever you don’t use can be stored in the refrigerator for about a month.
*Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Ten To One; however, as with all posts, we do not write about or endorse products that we don’t fully believe in.
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