Captain's Blood

This is a rum drink from p. 137 of The Essential Bartender by Robert Hess. It calls for:

2 ounces dark rum [Myers]
1/2 ounce lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist.

Nope, despite the "Captain" in the title, no Captain Morgan. This is a good, tightly-constructed and well-balanced drink. Lime juice and rum go together well, of course. However, it reminded me of a much better drink, the Both Indies from Killer Cocktails by David Wondrich. It's at p. 30.

Killer Cocktails is a superior manual, marred and made irritating by some genius at Harper Collins having decided to make it spiral-bound at the top, which makes it very hard to use. It's filled with good recipes, old and new, however. Wondrich urges the use of 115 proof Inner Circle Rum from Australia, which perhaps needless to say the evil apparatchiks at the nanny state agency which permits us to have only certain liquors in this state do not stock.

An aside: how proud they must be, those state employees, to spend their days deciding what we can all drink and what we can't. Wow, what a productive use of taxpayer's money that is! We couldn't possibly find a better use for that money in Michigan, oh no sir. Must be a great feeling to come home every day and regale the kids with how you are the bulwark keeping Michigan's residents from enjoying Australian rum, or anything else that your whim has not permitted in yet. So very socially useful. Like they couldn't just let businesses make those decisions and then charge whatever tax rate they wish. Like I wouldn't be happy to pay the damn tax if I could just buy what I freakin' liked instead of what they like.

Ahem. At any rate, Wondrich suggests subbing any "dark, heavy" rum for Inner Circle, so this gets the Myers.

2 ounces dark rum [Myers]
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce falernum [Fee Brothers]
1/4 ounce Grand Marnier
2 drops Angostura bitters

Shake, strain, etc. The bitters are tipped over the top when the drink is poured, not mixed in.

Falernum is a low proof mixer, a bit spicy and sweet, from the Caribbean. Hard to find in any case, and the Velvet Falernum brand Wondrich suggests is not available here - no, I won't start again - but Fee Brothers makes a non-alcoholic version which can be ordered from Amazon or Keg Works. This drink is really superior, even with all the substitutions. I can only imagine what it would be like with the recommended ingredients. Ah, some day, when our socialist masters fall and we are permitted to do as we like...