Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: St. Martin Daydreaming

Allow me, if you will, to re-visit my recent Caribbean vacation. Aside from having awesome cocktails before dinner, the French side of St. Martin is known for the post meal libations as well, at least in Grand Case anyway. In most (but not all places) you get a nice shot of (typically) home made rums, usually banana flavored. Naturally, they are absolutely delicious and had to bring some back with me. Here is my haul from the trip:

The skull bottle is from Ocean 82. The next two bottles come from a place called Calmos Café. The smaller bottle is from the most recent trip. The larger bottle with the C’est La Vie sticker is from when we went all the way back in 2016. After hurricane Irma, Calmos got hit pretty hard since they were right on the water and had (seemingly) closed up shop permanently. So we drank that rum sparingly. However, much to our delight, they re-opened in October of last year. Same owners and in the same spot. So we had to go there and get another bottle. The blank bottle is a rum from a restaurant in Grand Case that no longer exists. Again, hence the sparing use of it. Though I hope I haven’t fucked it since the bottle is open and there is a banana in there after all these years… . The last bottle, the white rum is one I purchased. I was with my friend and while buying wine and cheese for the day when we got pulled into an impromptu rum tasting, soon joined by a local sommelier who was excited he walked into a tasting at 10:30 in the morning.

So no formal cocktail review this week. I wanted to write about the awesome rums you can get down there and re-visit (at least mentally) a fantastic vacation spot we’re already plotting to go back to. I poured myself a glass of the original Calmos Café rum (the C’est La Vie bottle).

The nose is heavy on the rum but also sweet smelling, with strong banana notes, obviously. The banana flavors hit you up front, and they last the entire sip, and then some. This is a heavy mouth feel rum, and it sticks with your palate after finishing. There is a lot of sweetness with this rum, as it is more than likely molasses based, which contributes to the coating of the palate and delayed flavor dissipation.The rum flavor is present throughout, but it definitely takes a back seat to the sweet banana notes. It’s more of an underlying spiciness/alcohol burn that it brings to the party, but I think it’s a welcome one here. It keeps you from downing this too quickly since this is very, very good. I would compare this to a dark rum soaked banana bread. It’s that good.

The alcohol burn, combined with the sweet banana really make this a good digestif. No wonder differing variations are offered after dinner on the French side of that awesome little island. Every time I want a little taste of the island, I’ll be pouring from my selection of house made banana rums.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)