I enjoy a Cuba Libre or a Rum and Coke. But my favorite mixer with Coca Cola is cherry-flavored brandy. Surprisingly, however, cherry brandy doesn’t work well.
. . . This isn’t a Bulwer-Lytton award thread, is it?
It was a Dark & Stormy cocktail; made with ginger beer and rum - except in California (for it is in that state wherein the OP resides) where the additional ingredients of a thin wedge of lime and two thin wedges of orange are also included.
Not anymore. 
To my everlasting shame, I went a couple of rounds with the Kraken awhile back…and lost…so it might be a while before I try this one.
Typically a Dark & Stormy isn’t a spiced rum drink- just dark rum along the lines of Gosling’s Black Seal or Myers’ Dark, along with ginger beer and an optional slice of lime.
IMHO, the drink is better with the lime squeezed into it, and can be done with amber rum or other dark rum styles as well. Bundaberg ginger beer is good, as is Cock & Bull, Blenheim regular, or most other Jamaican style ginger beers.
(You’re in California; have you tried a Paloma? It’s kind of the same idea, only blanco tequila and Mexican grapefruit soda)
You have missed the point of putting rum in Coke, which is that you don’t taste the rum.
I think I had a Dark & Stormy for the first time in the early 90s, with Goslings dark rum. I strongly prefer it with dark rum vs spiced rum.
For the ginger beer I am partial to Barritt’s, as mentioned above.
…Dark & Stormy.
4 ice cubes
[del]2 thin wedges lime[/del]
[del]1 thin wedge orange[/del]
2 slices of fresh ginger <-- shouldn’t be necessary unless your ginger beer is weak
[del]45ml The Kraken black spiced rum[/del]
Uh uh, not spiced rum, oh no.
A nice dark rum: Goslings, or Myers, or Bacardi Select if you can’t find the others.
Bundaberg ginger beer to fill
Goslings is the traditional. Bundaberg isn’t as bitey as I like. Lots of room for variety though.
Completely agree with AHunter.
Whatever you had wasn’t a proper Dark N Stormy, but may well have been delicious.
I’m a confirmed ginger freak, and ginger beer is a different world from ginger ale.
Try the real thing, you’ll love it.
Ginger beer, or the cocktail?
Both.
Mount Gay Eclipse, Bundaberg or Reed’s Extra ginger beer and a squeeze of lime. Spiced rum belongs nowhere near this drink.
Oh, I already prefer ginger beer. But my preferred brand (Budarim Hot Australian) isn’t available here. Canada Dry ginger ale was all the corner market had.
My go-to ginger beer for Dark & Stormies is the default Gosling’s which is excellent. But I can heartily recommend any and all of these alternatives:
• Blenheim. Especially the ones with the pink caps, the extra hot & gingery version.
• Jamaica Ginger Beer, a staple of many NYC delis.
• Buffalo Rock Ginger ALE (labeled as such), a southern concoction that despite being designated as ginger ALE will convince you at the first sip.
The D&S I’ve had was made with 2 oz Sailor Jerry, 3 oz Barritts ginger beer, and .5 oz lime juice. Was quite good.
This thread got me to buy some ginger beer when I was at the store today. It’s going to be a Dark and stormy night tonight.
Despite not being in the canonical recipe, the lime juice is what makes the drink for me. That combination of ginger, lime and the rum’s molasses/sugarcane flavor works wonderfully together in a way that just rum and ginger beer don’t.
I also like a bit more ginger beer- like a 2:1 ratio to the rum.
I would just like to point out that dark n stormies, which are made from DARK rum and ginger BEER as above, are not mixed together. You float the rum on top of the ginger beer for a layered effect.
I prefer mine even weaker. Somewhere around 3:1 or 4:1 (I don’t do exact measurements).
I always thought that a dark and stormy contained bitters.
So basically dark rum and ginger mixed, which isn’t that dark. Bitters on top to make the dark descend into the drink.
But the amount of people here who say its Dark Rum and Ginger poured in a certain order, seems to hold up that I was wrong. Still, not going to change me making it my way.