Bourbon & Branch, San Francisco, 2008

Here’s a fun little drink that sits between worlds: sort of a sour, sort of a tiki drink, and none of the above. Good aged rum with lime and spiced syrups plus a dose of bitters sounds straight out of Don the Beachcomber or Trader Vic’s, but this is from San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch, a password-protected speakeasy deep in the grubby Tenderloin. These secret-entry bars are sometimes more show than substance – startup spots trying to capture some of the magic of places like Bourbon & Branch, Please Don’t Tell, or Noble Experiment – but when done right, the barrier to entry serves a good purpose. In the neighborhood full of bums surrounding Bourbon & Branch, the tiny, 24-at-a-time, subterranean room of PDT, or the weekend AXE-effect shitshow in San Diego’s Gaslamp around Noble Experiment, a speakeasy makes good sense. It controls the experience, adds drama, and cuts down on the riff-raff.

With a perfect balance of spirit, sour, sweet, and spicy, the Rum Crawl is a sure-hit crowd-pleaser, especially for those who may not care for more spirit-forward cocktails. It’s also an opportunity to use more of that homemade Falernum – its holiday spices of ginger, clove, and allspice plus the fragrant cinnamon and Angostura bark in the Fee Brother’s once-a-year bottling of Whiskey-Barrel Aged Bitters are a perfect match for fall and winter entertaining.

THE KIT

Hardware: Shaker, Jigger, Vegetable peeler
Ice: Ice cubes
Glassware: Cocktail glass or coupe
Spirits: Aged rum (recommended: Appleton Estate Extra 12, Flor de Caña Centenario 12)
Mixers & Liqueurs: Falernum, Ginger Syrup (recommended: B.G. Reynolds’)
Juices, Accents, & Garnishes: Lime juice, Whiskey-Barrel Aged Bitters (recommended: Fee Brothers), Orange twist

HOW TO

Chill a cocktail glass or coupe in the freezer at least ten minutes.In a shaker about a third-full with ice cubes, add:

2 oz aged rum
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz falernum
1/4 oz ginger syrup
2 dashes whiskey-barrel aged bitters

Shake well to blend and chill, then strain into the chilled glass.Pinch an orange twist over the drink to express oils onto its surface, then rub the twist around the glass rim to coat. Garnish with the twist laid across the surface of the drink.