Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but election stress drinking still in full swing, despite being three days post election day. At the time of this writing the outcome is still in question, though hopefully it will have been decided favorably.

Anyway, with the need for booze to get us through, I am here to help! I have plenty of leftover cinnamon syrup I used to make Don’s Mix for the Zombies I made last week. With my post wedding solo isolation coming to an end (hooray negative COVID test!)I need to use the syrup before I go so I don’t waste it. With that in mind (and the copious amount of rum I have on hand down here) I got to work looking up recipes.

Since my collection of cocktail books is still at home, I did some searching and came up with the Jet Pilot. However, while it does sound delicious, it is essentially a Zombie, minus the grenadine. That is just a little too similar for back to back cocktails of the week, so I’ll put that one on the back burner and revisit it later, probably sometime over the summer.

Having back burnered the Jet Pilot, I then decided that this week would be one of experimentation. It has been a little while since I played with ingredients myself, so now seems like a good time to give that a try again.

For ingredients, I have plenty of lemons & limes to work with for citrus flavors. For a mixer, I have pineapple and grapefruit juices. My first thought is dark rum and pineapple as a base, with some lime juice or a twist mixed in there. Along with some falernum and maybe some Angostura bitters. Let’s give that a shot and see how that goes!

I measured out:

1.5 oz. Dark rum

.5 oz. Don’s Mix

1 oz. Pineapple Juice

.5 oz Falernum

A few drops of Angostura bitter to top

Add all ingredients to a shaker filled with ice. Shake until extremely cold, then strain into a rocks glass filled with ice.

There is no aroma that particularly dominates. slight hint of bitter that I used to top the drink.

Good flavor. Rum forward, but only slightly. The pineapple juice has a nice mouth feel that coats the palate.It seems to take the rum along for a ride, and spreads the flavor around. The Rum flavor starts to take over midway through and finishes with a slightly sweet, rum flavor. An interesting note is despite topping with drops of the angostura bitters, they really only show up at the end. It seems they get masked, and then when the other flavors abate, they decide to show up, and it adds a nice finishing note to the overall flavor.

I actually decided against adding the citrus. I tasted for the initial proof of concept and liked it as it was. Though I can see where it could brighten the flavor up a little bit. But I would say this is optional, depending on individual tastes.

For my first foray into making cinnamon simple syrup, I think it was a success. It plays very well with rums, but I’m curious to how it would play with vodka. I foresee some more experimentation with this sweetener during the upcoming holiday season.

(Banner image found here)