Rum cocktails
11 drinks in Barello's library use rum. Each one lists what it needs, so you can see at a glance which are already within reach.
What cocktail can I make with rum?
Barello's library has 11 cocktails that use rum. The ones needing the fewest other bottles are Dark & Stormy, Cuba Libre and Daiquiri. Every recipe below lists exactly what it takes, so you can see which are already within reach.
About rum
What it is
Distilled from sugarcane, either from molasses left after sugar refining or from fresh pressed cane juice. It is the most varied spirit on the shelf and the least regulated, which is why two bottles both labelled rum can taste nothing alike.
Where it came from
Seventeenth century Caribbean, and it started as a way to use a waste product. Sugar plantations had molasses they could not sell, and distilling it turned a problem into a trade good. It is bound up with the slave trade, and the better modern producers do not pretend otherwise.
Worth knowing
White rum is filtered and light, and disappears into a Daiquiri. Aged and gold rums have been in barrel. Dark rums are heavier, often pot distilled, and carry molasses and treacle. Jamaican rum is deliberately high in esters, which is the funk you can smell across a room. Rhum agricole, from Martinique and Guadeloupe, is distilled from fresh cane juice and tastes grassy and mineral rather than sweet. Navy rum is a blend at higher proof. Spiced rum has been flavoured after distilling, and is a different thing again.
The rum list 11
Cuba Libre
Daiquiri
Dark & Stormy
Hurricane
Jungle Bird
Mai Tai
Mojito
Painkiller
Piña Colada
Three Dots and a Dash
Zombie
Not sure what to pour with it? See what to mix with rum.
Deciding what to buy? What every home bar needs counts which bottles open the most drinks, and the two-bottle table says which pairs genuinely combine.
Looking for an app that does this on your phone? We ranked the cocktail apps, including ours, by their real store ratings.
Work it the other way round. Tick every bottle you own, not just the rum, and Barello lists what you can make tonight.
What cocktail can I make?