February Drink of the Month - Shudders in a Whisper

Passion fruit syrup. A tiki drink's best friend!

As I mentioned last month (okay, I wrote my "January" post three days ago, but who's counting? At least I got this one written during the month of February), one of the best birthday presents I received was the wonderful Smuggler's Cove cocktail guide. I'm still making my way through the book (it''s lengthy, and has a wonderful history of tiki culture, luminaries in the field, and detailed descriptions of their methods), but the most useful thing I've found so far is their rum classification system. Some tiki books I've found focus on the regions from which a rum originated. While I enjoy rum from Barbados as much as the next person, I've had trouble in the past trying to keep my rums straight when making drinks that often call for a mix of 3-5 different sugar cane distillates.

The Smuggler's Cove system helps clear this up for me. They break down the spirits first by raw components, then by distillation method, and finally by length of aging. They develop 21 categories, but they list 8 as essential categories for building your own "speed rack" of tiki rums. If you noticed sticky tabs on my Journeyman rum from last "month," that was my own attempt to follow the Smuggler's Cover method. Here are their eight essential rum categories, along with the brands I've purchased to use in my home bar. Each category lists component first, followed by distillation method, and then age (lightly aged = 1-4 yr; aged = 5-14 yr; long aged = 14+ yr):

1) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Pot Still - Lightly Aged:  Journeyman Road's End Rum

2) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Blended - Lightly Aged: Appleton Estate Signature Blend

3) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Pot Still - Aged: Diplomatico Reserva

4) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Column Still - Lightly Aged: Flor de Cana 12 year

5) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Black Blended: Gosling's Black Seal

6) Molasses/Evaporated Cane Rum - Black Blended Overproof: Lemon Hart 151

7) Fresh Can Juice - Cane AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole - Unaged: Rhum J.M. White 100 proof

8) Fresh Can Juice - Cane AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole - Aged: Clement V.S.O.P 6 Years Tres Vieux

With these eight rums and a number of homemade syrups that they list at the end of the book, you can make most anything in their tome. For this month, I decided to make one of the author's (Martin Cate) original concoctions. It features passion fruit, which was on sale this month at my local Meijer. I was able to make plenty of fresh Passion Fruit syrup, which elevates the drink significantly (and I also made a bunch of hurricanes, because, duh). Shudders in a Whisper, a drink Cate whipped up for a photo shoot, is bubbly, fresh, tangy, and boozy. It made a great sipper, although my drink mixing partner Zack and I both agreed that could use a little less seltzer. Below is the recipe for Shudder in a Whisper - make it yourself and let me know if you agree (I'll list our recipe modifications in the notes below):

Our coupe glasses overfloweth - use a snifter if you
have one to avoid this issue!

In a Boston shaker, combine the following ingredients:
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz passion fruit syrup*
1/2 oz pear liqueur**
1/4 oz Drambuie
2 oz seltzer***
2 oz column still aged rum (#4 above)
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a brandy snifter (or if you're me, and your snifters don't exist, a coupe glass will do)

Notes:
*To make the Smuggler's Cove passion fruit syrup, combine equal parts passion fruit puree and 2:1 rich simple syrup. You can make the passion fruit puree using fresh fruit (its ripe now) or buy frozen
**We used pear brandy from Black Star Farms in Traverse City, MI. It is tasty stuff!
***We reduced the seltzer to 1 oz and added an additional 1/4 oz of pear liqueur - its less watery and more potent in our estimation with this change.

I hope you enjoy your Shudders in a Whisper (even if the name is a little creepy)!