Etwas rum

[muckefuck]

It's a good thing Father's Day fell when it did or we might have had even less advance warning that the 'rents would be here this weekend. It also helps that, after much trial-and-error, we've figured out that they will always assuming telling something to one of their sons in Chicago is the same as telling both of them, so the only way to retaliate is to always assume that the other knows nothing and inform him immediately. There's never cause to regret doing this.

monshu is a hero. Despite the fact that house is still a disaster of boxes, bags, sacks, and envelopes of all my worldly possessions, he volunteered to have Dad over for dinner tonight. bunj is also a hero, since he volunteered to spend the day with Dad at the Garfield Park Conservatory and so buy us the time to get all those boxes, bags, sacks, and envelopes out of the dining room so it was actually possible to eat a meal there.

Me, I got off easy: I had to run down to North and Halsted for medical tests and took advantage of the proximity to Sam's to stock up on overstrength rum for the Rumtopf. 110 proof is recommended to prevent fermentation, so if you mix two parts 80 proof to one part 151, you're close enough for government work. Without the restraining hand of monshu, however, I came back with much more than that.

I'd decided to get two litres of Bacardi 151, but then on a whim I decided to swap out one bottle of Gosling's Black Seal. The Stroh 80 (that's percent, not proof!) was too expensive for the Rumtopf despite being the most authentic. It's an Austrian Inländer-Rum, an attempt to counterfeit the liquor by a country without West Indian colonies that became a beloved local specialty. Rounding out the excess was a bottle of Plymouth Sloe Gin (something which has proved surprisingly difficult to find) and a bottle of St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram.

And we drank everything.

In small amounts, mind you. Before dinner, I made sloe gin fizzes for me and my dad. Afterwards, I lined up all four rums along with ordinary Bacardi Gold for a tasting. Despite Bacardi's reputation as the gold standard of smoothness, Nuphy thought it "medicinal". His impression of the 151 was that it was the same, only with more burning. (We were all amused by the bold red warnings of flammability festooning the bottle. There's even a "flame arrester" over the top. Apparently, other manufactures don't care if their clients burn to death.)

We both much preferred the Black Seal. Still perhaps too strong to drink straight, but a more complex taste overall; it would totally out-Myers Myers for any cooking purposes. Same goes for the Stroh 80, although it has quite a different taste. Butterscotch is what it reminded us of. My first exposure to it was in orange marmalade, of all things (Café Meinl has a limited supply of which--thanks to Dad--I now have two more jars), and it's mighty tasty.

The pimento dram was a pleasant surprise: The nose is so powerful, you're prepared for an overwhelming amount of spice in each sip, but actually it's reasonable strength for a liqueur. Nuphy wouldn't drink it straight, but I would. Oh, and speaking of overwhelming Haus Alpenz liqueurs, Nuphy had an idea for disposing of the Zirbenz (a.k.a. "Austrian Pine-Sol"): marinade. Use it for cooking something that you would flavour with juniper berries, like a sauerbraten. So crazy it just might work!

Incidentally, the most heartening aspect of the Sam's visit was finding them back to their old selves. I had a nice chat with the manager, who muttered about how the equity partners seemed to be back to their senses after trying about everything they could to kill off the business. He agreed that it was "pretty bad" at the time of our last visit in January, but it's recovering nicely. Not only do they have the entire Haus Alpenz line, but oude jenever is back (one brand at least). Still no Barbadillo, sadly.

Comments

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I pointed jacflash, our local rum expert, to this. He said he'd just had the "Black Seal out-Myers Myers's" discussion. :-)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a rum drinker. (The odd cuba libre here and there, sometimes a toddy or a dollop in my tea.) But that much was obvious from the first sip!

[hanskramladen.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

You're the first person I know who actually does anything with Stroh Rum - in Germany, it's the classical souvenir from Austria that everybody buys, and then it just stays around for ages in the liquor cabinet...