Sometimes finding the right cocktail is a challenge. When wanting to do a summery spirit forward cocktail with rum, I was faced with a challenge. While I could have made up some version of another cocktail, I chose to do a slight twist on another cocktail. When doing a cocktail like this it is quite hard to find something that fits the bill, spirit forward cocktails tend to be very bold and heavy, more suitable for the autumn and winter in my opinion. The challenge is to find one with ingredients that work well in the summer, and though I, still, think it is challenging Campari is one of those ingredients that make for cocktails that work well in the summer months, even in spirit forward cocktails. Now, that I had one ingredient that was my main goal, the rum, and a secondary to narrow the selection down, Campari. It was time to choose something that will balance the cocktail, here the traditional rout to go is sweet vermouth, to make a rum Negroni, however that was not interesting when I made the cocktail. Browsing cocktail books and apps, I found one that was interesting to me. The one I found was a take on a Negroni but instead of gin it used rum and instead of vermouth it used sherry.

My Recipe:

• 2 oz (6 cl) White Rum
• 0.75 oz (2.25) Campari
• 0.75 oz (2.25) Oloroso Sherry

Add the ingredients to a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain into an Old-Fashioned glass with ice and ideally garnish with an orange twist.

My thoughts on the cocktail

When tasting this cocktail, you are first hit with the bitterness of the Campari, which gradually turns into the nutty flavour of the sherry. Important when doing this cocktail is to have a rum which can fight through the Campari and the sherry. Since both have very strong and bold flavours using a subtler rum might make the rum disappear. In my opinion this would also work great with a bolder darker rum, maybe even a bit better. In all it is a bold spirit forward cocktail that works in the summer, and if that is what you are looking for or an alternative to a Negroni or perhaps also an Aperol spritz then it might be the cocktail for you. Lastly if I were to rank this on a scale from beginner to advanced cocktail drinker I would say it falls on the spectrum between the middle and advanced.