There are very few other spirits which can be consumed year round with absolutely no effort: gin is a drink for late spring and summer, whiskey tastes best with a chill in the air; I believe it has been scientifically proven that there are no conditions under which vodka does not suck. Rum on the other hand, is an incredibly protean beverage, refreshing and invigorating in the sun, solemn and fortifying under grey skies. I am by no means the first person to notice this phenomenon: Esquire recently ran a piece on the subject which I highly recommend.
A large amount of this versatility stems from the fact that rum cheats. There are at least four entirely distinct families of liquor under the rum umbrella, each with a unique seasonal character. The big split is of course between those rums made from sugar cane juice, and those made from molasses. The cane juice rums, cachaca and rum agricole, are much more temperamental drinks, with a considerable amount of botanical variance in their tastes. These find a home primarily in the cocktails of summer - mojitos and caipirinhas, things with bright, cutting flavors that are best served cold.
Proceeding to the molasses rums, the tree splits into the three familiar branches: light and aged rums, dark rums, and spiced rums. In more civilized times, the difference between the light/aged rums and the dark rums was that light rum had been filtered, and the dark ones had not, retaining a great deal of their antecedent fluids rough, sulphuric sweetness. In modern times though, I suspect that all the rums are filtered, and the dark ones then receive a post-distillation addition of color and flavor. The spiced rums of course, make no bones about the fact that they have been doctored after their original distillation. Regardless of their production method though, each category contains examples both sublime and deplorable.
It is the dark and the spiced rums specifically which lend rum its extraordinary versatility. Rum as a spirit has always been rather less concerned with definitions and propriety than any of the grain derived boozes. Thanks to this, the same basic drink that makes the pina colada such a masterfully refreshing drink, can also come straight out of the bottle ready to take on apple cider, liquified ice cream, and hot butter. I suspect the idea of welcoming esoteric infusions of sugar and seasonings to liquor makes a lot of purists nervous, but it's an attitude that I suspect will begin to change, warily, over the next couple years. American's love novelty and invention in our foodstuffs, and at some point we're going to decide that we've gone as far as we can with the traditional, minimalist approaches to distilling. Luckily for rum, it will already be there, ready to forge ahead.
Don't believe my assertions of potential? Well try this: make the following cocktail recipe. Do it once using your preferred aged rum (or start with Cruzan, if you don't have a preference) and then do it again, and use Sailor Jerry. Yep, Sailor Jerry, the spiced, cherry infused rum that's joined root and brand with fucking Ed Hardy. I tell you what though: for my dollar, all that extra junk they put in means that it stands up in a cocktail in unique and highly appreciable ways.
Grog Punch:
Mix one full jigger of rum with a teaspoon of sugar and the juice of 1/2 a lime. Pour over ice in a glass, and fill the glass with soda water. Sprinkle liberally with bitters. If your glass is too big (an oversize porcelain Buddha perhaps) proportionally increase the recipe until you get where you need to be. Enjoy carefully.
