The 12 Best Rum Cocktails For When You Want to Get Away
A terrace overlooking a sunset. A white-sand beach. A bar in Havana. Pour up one of these, and you'll feel like you're there.
Rum runs the cocktail gamut. You can be meditative as you make a Mojito, treating each ingredient with the utmost care so that the mint is muddled just so, the lime squeezed just right, the rum-to-club soda ration is just perfect. You can also chuck a bunch of ingredients in a blender with some ice, dump it out in a cup, and garnish it with whatever's in your line of sight—a pineapple frond, a dash of nutmeg, a bundle of dry twigs. Like a Painkiller. You can make a rum drink that lights a fire in your belly (Hot Buttered Rum, for example) or a rum drink that you quite literally light on fire (a Zombie, which is also what you will become after ingesting one).
As spring transitions to a hot-as-ever summer, rum takes its rightful place in the seasonal cocktail lineup, up there with tequila and bitter Italian aperitifs. These are 12 rum cocktails you can make for yourself at home—which very well might be the only place you'll be drinking cocktails at all for the foreseeable future—escalating from easier recipes to ones that'll demand most of your bar cart in pursuit of a spine-rattling ABV. You pick the poison.
Daiquiri
There's no need to blend a Daiquiri with ice and sweetened strawberry pulp, à la Applebee's. This way—the classic way—is much better.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. white rum
• 1/2 tsp. superfine sugar
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
Directions
Squeeze the lime into your shaker, stir in the sugar, and then add the rum. Shake well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Dark and Stormy
Easy to make and delightfully spicy. Don't swap ginger ale for ginger beer.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 3 oz. ginger beer
• 1/2 oz. lime juice (optional)
Directions
Fill a tall glass with ice cubes. Add rum. Pour in ginger beer and lime juice. Stir with a barspoon. Garnish with a lime wedge.
Piña Colada
Keep the blender going all day. Relish the sugar buzz.
Ingredients
• 2 1/2 oz. rum
• 3 oz. pineapple juice
• 1 oz. coconut cream
• ice
Directions
Start with the rum. Then combine with unsweetened pineapple juice (you can sub in 3 ounces crushed or whole pineapple), and coconut cream in a blender. Blend on high with a cup or so of crushed ice, or 5 or 6 ice cubes. Pour into a tall glass. Garnish with whatever you've got.
Hot Buttered Rum
It's like taking tea to quiet the stomach and soothe the soul. Only, of course, rum makes it better.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 2 sugar cubes
• 1 pat unsalted butter
Directions
In a mug, dissolve the sugar cubes in a little hot water. Add rum and butter. Fill the mug with hot water. Sprinkle nutmeg on top.
Mojito
This recipe is a good one to memorize; if you can make a Mojito like it's second nature, you'll be able to impress anyone.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. white rum
• 1/2 oz. lime juice (squeezed fresh)
• 1 tsp. superfine sugar
• 3 mint leaves
• club soda or seltzer
Directions
In a smallish Collins glass, muddle lime juice with 1/2 to 1 tsp. superfine sugar. Add the mint leaves, mushing them against the side of the glass. Fill glass 2/3 with cracked ice and pour in the rum. Pitch in the squeezed-out lime shell and top off with club soda or seltzer.
Air Mail
Rum and champagne aren't obvious mates, but that makes a bright and honeyed Air Mail all the more interesting.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. golden rum
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1 tsp. honey
• 5 oz. Brut champagne
Directions
Stir rum, lime juice, and honey thoroughly with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker. Pour unstrained into a Collins glass. Top with champagne.
Painkiller
Get buzzed. Fast.
Ingredients
• 3 oz. dark or gold rum
• 2 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. coconut cream
Directions
Shake ingredients well with ice in cocktail shaker. Strain into a hurricane glass over fresh ice. Garnish with grated nutmeg.
Hurricane
This drink was meant to be downed while wandering the French Quarter. But your backyard will work in a pinch.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. passion fruit syrup
• 1 oz. fresh lemon juice
• orange slices
• maraschino cherries
Directions
Combine rum, passion fruit syrup, and lemon juice with ice in a shaker. Shake until frosty. Pour into a hurricane glass filled with more ice cubes. Garnish with orange slices and maraschino cherries.
Mai Tai
There are many wrong ways to make a Mai Tai. This is the right way.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. orange curaçao
• 1/2 oz. orgeat syrup
• 1/8 oz. rock candy syrup
Directions
Shake ingredients with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker. Pour unstrained into a large Collins glass (or tiki mug). Garnish with half a lime shell and a sprig of mint.
Bushwacker
It's basically a milkshake. An alcoholic milkshake.
Ingredients
• 2 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. Kahlúa
• 1 oz. dark crème de cacao
• 2 oz. cream of coconut
• 2 oz. milk
• nutmeg, whipped cream, or cherry (optional)
Directions
Blend ingredients with ice—start with 1/2 c. and add from there—until the mix reaches milkshake consistency. Pour into a hurricane-style glass, then garnish with grated nutmeg, whipped cream, or a maraschino cherry.
Rum Runner
A doozy of a cocktail, with more fruit flavors than a grocery store's produce aisle.
Ingredients
• 1 oz. light rum
• 1 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. banana liqueur
• 1 oz. blackberry liqueur
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. pineapple juice
• splash of grenadine
Directions
Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a glass over fresh ice. Garnish with fresh fruit.
Zombie
The ultimate rum cocktail. Approach it carefully. Drink it slowly.
Ingredients
• 1/2 oz. white rum
• 1 1/2 oz. golden rum
• 1 oz. dark rum
• 1/2 oz. 151-proof rum
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1 tsp. pineapple juice
• 1 tsp. papaya juice
• 1 tsp. superfine sugar
Directions
Stir together all the ingredients except the 151. Pour the mixture into a 14-ounce glass three-fourths full of cracked ice. Float the 151 as a lid by pouring it into a spoon and gently dipping it under the surface of the drink; if the spirit moves you, take a match to it. Garnish with mint (either straight or dipped in lime juice and then superfine sugar) and/or fruit.
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The Manhattan Is a Cocktail You Earn
The Dark and Stormy Has the Best Cocktail Name
