Today's cocktail: Dark & Stormy

Today's ingredients: dark rum, ginger beer, ice

Today's gadgets: highball glass

Today's vocabulary: floating, long drink

Credit: Charles Shultz

I like football.

As unhealthy, injurious, and potentially deadly (now or later) as this sport is, I still watch it. As much evidence as is out there about the negative long-term effects of the sport on the human body, I still watch it. As a licensed youth fitness and nutrition professional who discourages any child from playing this sport (and most any organized, repetitive-motion sport, for that matter--another soapbox for another day), I still watch it.

Football means different things to different people, offering anything from a simple social experience to hope for real escape from an otherwise less-than-promising future. Personally, I only really follow the Carolina Panthers. I have since we landed the expansion franchise. I didn't play football growing up other than two weeks in junior high tryouts (I left because I was a tub of lard and didn't understand the concept of "hell week"--too bad since I was already penciled in as the starting left guard, but I also probably wouldn't have lost half my bodyweight for wrestling, either, but I digress). My father was a casual Saints and post-Marino Dolphins fan, so there was no track record of NFL success or even interest in our household. I went to UNC Charlotte, which didn't have a football program at the time. All this to say: I wasn't much of a football fan until the Panthers came to town.

Success is fleeting for this team: the Panthers have never had back-to-back winning seasons. The closest they've come in their twenty-year history was in 2006 and 2009, when they finished 8-8 after respective 11-5 and 12-4 seasons. Their 2014 campaign is not looking too promising at this point. In fact, it's a wonder how we won as many games as we have, but I won't get into that other than to say that I took some extra time at halftime during a recent loss to put together a cocktail reflective of my mood at the time. I tried it a couple additional times, you know, for science, and I can report that my mood improved significantly.

Dark & Stormy

The name and recipe for the Dark & Stormy are actually trademarked by Gosling's Brothers Ltd, which specifies using Gosling's Black Seal Rum and Gosling's Stormy Ginger Beer. For our purposes here, most any dark rum and ginger beer will work; in fact, the official IBA recipe says:

• 6cl / 2oz dark rum
• 10cl / 3.3oz ginger beer
• Pour dark rum into ice-filled highball glass
• Top with ginger beer
• Garnish with lime wedge

Note that this is using ginger BEER, not ginger ALE. Ginger beer is typically less sugary and more gingery than ginger ale, and if you use a black rum, it will be less sweet than a mass-produced spiced rum that gets extra sweeteners, so there's a good chance this is going to be less sweet than it sounds. Your mileage may vary, so as with all ingredients, definitely try them by themselves first so you know what you're getting (we'll talk about the process of tasting another time).

I had neither Gosling's product available--this was made on a whim while the Panthers were getting blown out (again)--so I went with Reed's Ginger Beer (available at many grocery stores) and Carolina Coast Spiced Rum (because it's great and made by an in-state craft distillery). Had I grabbed the "official" black rum, a 0.75L bottle is about $18 around here. The "official" ginger beer, however, requires driving across state lines--it's not sold in North Carolina. Weird, right?

This is considered a long drink, meaning it's created with more liquid than, say, an after-dinner cocktail. Both types of drinks generally use the same amount of alcohol, so a long drink tends to use more mixer and is therefore more diluted. A highball glass adds to this visual, but since I didn't have a clean highball glass at the time, an Old Fashioned glass had to suffice (it still held the mixture quite functionally).

Also, this drink gives you a chance to be a little visually creative by floating the rum on top of the ginger beer: after adding the ginger beer, hold a spoon horizontally over the glass with the back of the spoon facing upward, then very slowly pour the rum onto the back of the spoon. It should fall off all sides of the spoon and land on the ginger beer without mixing with it. It might take a couple tries, but it's a cool effect that can be used with many other drinks (like Baby Guinness shots).

Foreground: floated rum on top of ginger beer. Background: failed first attempt.

There's not much in the way of alterations for this drink simply because almost everything you're likely to find would be an alteration. It does have a refreshing crispness without being syrupy sweet, but it's tough to give a real review due to the variety of products. If you really want a black rum and can't find Gosling's, pick up some Kraken. If you just want a dark rum, keep in mind that the more popular and widespread a spiced rum is, the more likely it has extra sweeteners added rather than actual aging.

Let me know what you use to put this together and what you think of it. As I mentioned, I used what was on-hand at home, so I'm happy to try out some other variations.