On the earth of rum cocktails, shaken, fruit-forward recipes far outnumber their stirred, spirit-forward counterparts. Save for a handful of classics, such because the Manhattan-like Palmetto and El Presidente, and the minimalist Ti’ Punch, historic examples from the class are few and much between.
That’s maybe why, once I was tasked with updating the cocktail menu at Loyal 9 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in late spring 2016, I homed in on a stirred rum drink from Charles H. Baker Jr.’s 1951 South American Gentleman’s Companion: the Georgetown Membership. Baker described the cocktail as a “easy but undoubtedly fascinating combine from the capital metropolis of British Guiana.” He doubtless encountered it throughout his liquid fieldwork, maybe on the namesake gents’s membership that was the regional middle for colonial British aristocracy throughout that period.
The recipe that Baker recorded was a trinity of the “most interesting white rum accessible,” dry vermouth, and the Caribbean spiced cordial falernum. That teaspoon of falernum supplies sufficient sugar to push the dry vermouth into the realm of blanc vermouth and successfully tie the drink collectively as a rum Martini, of types. In contrast to with a basic gin Martini, which must be consumed bracingly chilly and thus rapidly to be maximally loved, the Georgetown Membership softens the perimeters of the drink, prolonging the window of enjoyment.
Whereas Baker advisable a Cuban white rum as the bottom, at Loyal 9, I opted for the clear class of unaged Privateer Silver Rum (now referred to as Privateer New England White Rum after a slight reformulation in 2019), a home product with no commerce embargo to fret about. To take its pleasant tropical notes to the subsequent degree, I added a contact of grassy rhum agricole. And whereas the unique requires an orange or lemon twist, I discover that lime oils elevate the drink by accenting each the falernum and the rum.
With its clear, crisp profile, the Georgetown Membership works amazingly nicely as each an aperitif and a food-friendly Martini all through the summer time. In my eyes, it’s not solely a window into how people had been ingesting 75 years in the past, it’s the forefather of the trendy tropical Martini development—class with a contact of journey.
