Spirited Cocktails

The recipe for this cocktail is long overdue. I’ve been wanting to reconstruct it since I first tried it at the Gramercy Tavern a few months ago. I’ll skip the excuses and get right down to business, with the exception of saying the following: make this cocktail. You won’t be sorry.

The premise is simple: a Greyhound has long been recognized as a a spirit combined with grapefruit juice. The spirit is usually vodka, but you know we don’t use much of that here.

The Cruzan Silver Greyhound follows that premise with two minor variations: the addition of a little sugar, and the critical addition of grapefruit bitters. If you don’t have any grapefruit bitters, you can order them online (Amazon). They play a huge role in giving this cocktail the depth that sets it apart from the standard Greyhound. 

Here’s what you’re going to need:

2oz aged white rum (I used Cruzan, as they provided me with this recipe)
3oz fresh grapefruit juice
1/2oz simple syrup (optional, if you prefer your cocktails on the sweet side)
2 dashes grapefruit bitters

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake well, and strain into a tall glass over fresh ice.

When I enjoyed this cocktail at Gramercy Tavern, it was garnished with candied grapefruit peel. This was certainly a wonderful touch, and if you have candied grapefruit peel, I recommend including it as a garnish. Sadly, I didn’t have any lying around, so I omitted it this time.

Again, I really enjoyed this cocktail at Gramercy, and I’ve made it a number of times since recreating it. I really recommend you try it, and I look forward to hearing what you think!

Cheers!

You know I don’t really do much in the way of brand-specific work here at Spirited Cocktails. I haven’t done many brand reviews (though I’ve had a lot of requests, so I may start), and I very rarely call for a specific brand of spirit in any of my recipes. I think it benefits the consumer to try different brands on their own and determine what suits their own tastes.

Earlier this week, though, @NYBarfly (whom you should be following on Twitter) was gracious enough to invite me to join him in meeting Andrea, an educator at Cruzan Rum, at Gramercy Tavern. Many brand ambassadors claim to be “educators”, but Andrea is the real deal. She knows more about rum than I think she cares to admit, and I couldn’t help but truly respect her once she went all “spirits geek” on us and the bottles of molasses came out at dinner!

As Andrea taught us, Cruzan Rum has a long and rich history on the island of St. Croix. You may know them well for their wide variety of flavored rums (including guava, coconut, pineapple, and more.) But Cruzan seems to be trying hard to really expand their line of “pure” rums – a line which now includes a single-barrel estate rum, a black strap rum, and others – in order to help rum win the respect it truly deserves.

All too often, we think about rum and we form an immediate association with mojitos. Mojitos aren’t all that bad, but they’ve been so over exposed (thanks to brands like Bacardi), that they’ve become a sugary shadow of their former selves. In fact, rum is used in some of the most classic cocktails (like the Daiquiri) as well as some of the earliest punches. A quality rum can also be mixed in a number of modern cocktails (as I’m about to show you), or even sipped straight on its own.

The supremely-talented bartenders at Gramercy Tavern were kind enough to mix up a few different cocktails with Cruzan rum. I didn’t capture all of the proportions for each one, but I’ll give you a rough description, and because I’m so dedicated, I guess I’ll head back to Gramercy Tavern soon and dig up more detail for you!

Here, Andrea is holding up the Orange Blossom – made with Cruzan rum , champagne, St. Germain, lemon juice, a sugar cube, and orange peel.	The Cruzan Silver Greyhound was very grapefruit-centric (as you’d expect), including Cruzan rum, grapefruit juice, grapefruit bitters, cane sugar, and candied grapefruit as a garnish.	As an after-dinner drink, the bartender whipped up what a Cruzan Hot Toddy, with Cruzan Rum, Hot water, Orange Juice, Lemon Juice, Velvet Falernum, and cinnamon sticks. (This one was my favorite!)

If you ever have a chance to catch up with Andrea and hear her speak about rum, I highly recommend it. I believe she’ll be appearing at the Tales of the Cocktail event later this summer. In the meantime, maybe I can talk her into a guest post here at Spirited Cocktails.

As I said, I’ll be working diligently to dissect the three cocktails I described above and recreate them for you here. If you just can’t wait, swing by Gramercy Tavern here in New York and ask one of the talented bartenders there to help you out – I’m certain you’ll enjoy them!

Cheers!

Update: Check out @NYBarfly’s post about our trip. Trust me – he’s a far better writer than I!