With its signature smoky-spicy profile, its wealthy Scotch base and peated whisky float, the Penicillin is the encapsulation of fall in cocktail kind. Have been it an individual, it would layer a flannel shirt beneath a chunky wool sweater beneath a beanie-topped head. However what would the drink seem like if it shed its thermals in favor of flip-flops?
Enter the Rum Penicillin. Created by Liz Kelley, lead bartender at New Orleans’ Treatment, the drink doesn’t stray removed from the fashionable traditional, however just a few key modifications seamlessly carry the blueprint from hearth to poolside.
Because the title suggests, the drink facilities a rum base in lieu of the everyday blended Scotch. Kelley constructed the drink round a particular cask of Cheramie rum, a Louisiana-made agricole-style rum that’s funky, grassy and high-proof, blended for Treatment’s sibling bar Cane & Desk. (Different aged rhum agricoles, akin to La Favourite Rhum Agricole Ambré and Neisson Élevé Sous Bois, can be utilized as substitutes.) “Given the daring character of the spirit, I knew it wanted to be shaken with citrus to carry stability and brightness,” explains Kelley. From there, she says, “I stored coming again to ginger as a pure complement, which led me to reimagine the Penicillin.”
True to the unique, honey and ginger each make their means into the drink, whereas lemon juice is swapped for lime. Kelley describes the completed cocktail as “one thing that walks the road between a traditional Daiquiri and a Penicillin.” However for me, it veers into Mai Tai territory, or at the very least Don’s Mai Tai territory, because of the mix of allspice notes from the Angostura bitters and the ginger, which collectively recall the spiced high quality of falernum.
It’s the kind of twist on a traditional that’s so easy but so efficient, it makes you want you’d considered it first. Thankfully, my remorse doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of this drink one bit. Attempt for your self and see.
