Sons of Africa
Recipe:
- 60ml Equiano Original Afro-Caribbean Dark Rum
- 10ml hibiscus tea syrup
- 10ml pineapple liqueur (e.g. Giffard or selfmade)
- 1 bsp pimento/allspice dram (e.g. The Bitter Truth)
- 1 dash Angostura bitters
- 1 pinch of salt
Stir everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into your prechilled rocks glass over one large ice cube, garnish with a dried lemon wheel and hibiscus petals.
Created for the Equiano Cocktail Competition 2022, the bottle was provided to me for this, thank you!
If you know me, you might also know maybe my favorite category of drinks are stirred aged rum drinks, with a nice balance of dry-herbal-slightly sweet notes, strong but still drinkable. I would have preferred to go straight for original, indigenous fruits from Mr. Equiano's country of origin, Benin, in present days Nigeria. But as so often with native, exciting fruits, they are in some cases even under threat of extinction or at least extremely rare, not suitable for a competition. So I asked a fellow student from Nigeria for inspiration, what is popular in the local cuisine, interesting drinks, beverages, etc. and already the second answer was like a sign of fate, "Zobo" or "Zoborodo", a soft drink popular in Nigeria (and fittingly also as “Sorrel Drink” in the Caribbean), made from hibiscus tea / flowers and pineapple juice. So the one ingredient I've been constantly using and working with for over a year, as a great more complex substitute for grenadine for example, and my favorite fruit (by far) on the planet. The base was there and the ratio needed to be found, the rum should come through well and its already inherent notes simply accentuated. So an exciting slight fruitiness with lightly toasted oak, nice dryness and subtle sweetness and elegance. For complexity, I added some salt or saline solution (fits also well with the idea of voyages across the ocean, of course), as well as another ingredient from the holy Caribbean trinity (pineapple, pimento and falernum) for the necessary spicyness. This fits also well, since Nigerians love spicy food according to my source, look at one of the most popular street food, Suya, skewers with beef in spicy marinade.
The result is a drink that lets the Equiano shine through directly on the nose, with the notes working together in such a way that you really don't know what the rum is and what the ingredients are, as they overlap nicely. A particular fruitiness of pickled pineapple, vegtal red fruit from the hibiscus and subtle burnt caramel, plus dried citrus freshness and tea from the garnish. In the mouth you will find similar notes with the addition of beautiful sugar cane and especially in the finish the touch of sea salt and clove / allspice. Despite the spirit focus it is very easy to drink, meant as a Summer Old Fashioned basically.
