Explorers Gold

Rum and Honey

The combination predates formal cocktail bartending by centuries. Honey was the most widely available sweetener across Britain and the Caribbean before refined sugar became affordable, and rum and honey together turn up in medicinal preparations, in naval practice and in celebration drinks across the Caribbean colonies and the British ports that traded with them.

The hot version survived in British domestic culture as a remedy for cold weather and minor illness, which is where the toddy comes from. The cold version had to wait for bartending to mature enough to build a sour around it.

Explorers Gold is the cold expression: the same two ingredients, given a structure.

Why a Spiced Rum

Honey is not simply sweet. It is floral and faintly botanical, and its character is determined by whatever the bees visited, which makes it an ingredient rather than a sweetener.

That is why it suits a spiced rum specifically. Seven real spices, two natural sweeteners and bourbon oak is a profile with places for honey to attach: the vanilla and the oak give warmth the honey reinforces, the cinnamon, allspice and clove give a spice the honey's florals soften without flattening, and the orange peel and ginger give a brightness that works with the lemon.

Against a plain white rum the honey has nothing to lean on and sits on the surface. Against a spiced rum built on artificial flavouring it sits on top of something synthetic, which is worse.

The Honey Syrup Discipline

Two parts honey to one part warm water, and this is not fussiness.

Neat honey is viscous and does not disperse in cold liquid. Shaken into rum and lemon over ice it partially seizes, and what does integrate does so unevenly: the finished drink is noticeably sweeter at the bottom of the glass than at the top, and there is usually a residue left in the tin.

Diluted, it behaves like any other liquid sweetener and measures accurately, which neat honey also does not. It keeps a fortnight in the fridge and is worth making in advance rather than improvising.

Choosing the Honey

This is the variable most worth experimenting with, and most recipes never mention it.

Wildflower honey gives a delicate, aromatic result that suits warm weather and lets the rum's spice lead. A darker buckwheat or heather honey gives something richer and more assertive, better after dinner and in winter. Acacia, among the lightest commercial honeys, produces something closer to a standard sour, with the honey contributing texture more than flavour.

All three are correct. What is not correct is using whichever jar happens to be open and then being surprised at the result.

The Egg White

Optional, and it turns a good drink into a complete one.

Egg white contributes almost nothing to taste and a great deal to structure. Dry shaken, its proteins build a foam that holds for several minutes and sits on the surface after straining, and that foam carries the rum and honey aromatics to the nose fractionally before the lemon acid arrives at the palate.

It also gives the Angostura somewhere to sit. Two dashes dotted across the foam add a spice and gentian top note bridging the rum's botanicals and the honey's florals, which is a job the bitters cannot do stirred into the liquid.

How to Serve It

Dry shaken, shaken again with ice, double strained into a chilled coupe or rocks glass, bitters dotted over the foam, lemon peel expressed and rested on the rim.

Immediately, before the foam settles. It suits everything from a pre-dinner aperitif to a slow evening pour, which is a wider range than most sours manage.

Frequently Asked Questions