Baby Missiles – Spytail Cognac Barrel
Inspired by the New Ginger Mai Tai from the Seibert’s Bar in Cologne, I also wanted to create an exotically flavoured Mai Tai. However, instead of ginger, I went for Makrut lime and lemon grass for infusing the rum. Apart from that, I paired the spiced rum and orange curaçao with matcha liqueur to add some more flavours and a beautiful colour.
Five-year-old rum from Trinidad and Guyana forms the base for the Spytail Cognac Barrel Spiced Rum. After the rum arrives at the distillery on the banks of the Charente river in France it further rests in cognac barrels for six months. Afterwards the rum is finished with caramel as well as natural flavours and bottled at 40 % ABV. Apart from that, the bottle is inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
Caramel and spices
What I like about the Spy Tail Rum, besides its interesting bottle design, is that they clearly state what is in the bottle. You get some caramel notes and a lot of spices. The rum is relatively smooth with hints of menthol and even some Guyanese ester notes. However, the rum probably works best in cocktails.
Little green goblin
Obviously, I also based my cocktail on the original Mai Tai. For the drink I infused six to eight Makrut lime leaves and one cut up lemon grass stalk in 200 ml Spytail Spiced Rum. Apart from that, I thought that the Suntory Matcha Liqueur would go well with the Asian flavours and therefore reduced the amount of curaçao in the recipe. In the end, I also made a Szechuan pepper syrup and threw this also in the mix.
0,75 cl Ferrand Orange Curaçao
0,75 cl Suntory Matcha Liqueur
3 cl Lime Juice
1 cl Menau Orgeat
0,75 cl Szechuan Pepper Syrup
Garnish: Two Lime Quarters as Ears;
Song: The War on Drugs – Baby Missiles;
As crazy as the list of ingredients for the “Baby Missiles” may sound, the different flavours work very well together. The rum, the matcha liqueur the other spices blend together and form a complex flavour profile. You still can taste hints of the individual ingredients, but all in all the drinking experience is very smooth and pleasant.
*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The rum was provided by Spytail.
