Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: The San Francisco Treat

We made it to another Friday friends. Time to rejoice and relax. This week was a slog and a half so I’ve been looking forward to writing and posting this as a sort of waypoint/mile marker on the path to the weekend, and it’s finally here.

National Rum Day happened to fall on last Tuesday (8/16), so naturally I had to break out the rum again this week. I came across the Cable Car in my google feed this week, and thought it sounded fantastic and decided to try it, especially since I went to the tiki well last week, and figured a little variety in my rum drinks would be a prudent move. There are apparently a few different versions of this San Francisco born drink floating around the web, but I settled on the one linked above for ease of preparation, and I’ve found that in cocktails, simple is usually better. We’ll see won’t we?

Cable Car

1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 cup sugar

1 lemon wedge

1.5 oz spiced rum

.75 oz. Marie Brizard orange curaçao

1 oz lemon juice, freshly squeezed

.5 oz. simple syrup

Garnish: orange spiral

Stir together the cinnamon and sugar in a wide-mouthed bowl or on a saucer. Rub the rim of a chilled cocktail glass (or half of the rim) with the lemon wedge and dip the rim in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat. Set the glass aside. Add the spiced rum, orange curaçao, lemon juice and simple syrup to a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled. Double-strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with an orange spiral.

The aroma reminds me of fall. That’s where my mind automatically goes when I mix cinnamon and sugar. It’s definitely not a bad thing though. It is giving me some pumpkin spice PTSD though. I’m not ready for that to be a thing yet, but it is getting to be that season…

The flavor is mostly sweet, with a little bit of sour that comes in at the end. Not at all what I would have expected here, but in a good way. The mostly sweet and slight sour plays well with the rum, somewhat making the flavors until the very end. That’s when the cointreau, simple, and the lemon abate just enough for more of the rum flavor to come out. Now this might be my favorite part of the drink. I wish the rum flavors were more prominent, because they work so well together. Personally, I think this drink needs the rum bumped up to two ounces from the ounce and a half called for.

As for the extra sweetness, I wonder if the blended rum is the culprit. I don’t think it has as much of a punch as a single barrel (is that how you describe non blended rums?) spiced rum. An extra spicy rum might cut through the front half of the drink easier than this blend. So, maybe instead of adding another half ounce of rum, I should change the base.

I do like this cocktail, I just wish the sweetness was toned down a little bit, and the sour from the lemon was a little more pronounced. Also, I would skip the cinnamon sugar rim. It can be nice when you’re ordering it out somewhere, but cinnamon sugar rims at home I always find to not be worth the hassle and cleanup. Plus I can never get a decent amount on the glass itself, so it just ends up mostly being a waste of spices.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)