Been making margaritas for the wife and me the past couple hot summer weekends. Found a couple margarita threads here, so I had no need to ask for a good recipe. Came up with a recipe of: 3 parts El Mayor Reposado tequila (I know the silver is more traditional, but the Reposado is so smooth), 2 parts fresh squeezed lime juice, 1 part Cointreau, dash of simple syrup, blended with a fair amount of ice. Fantastic summer drink.
Unfortunately the El Mayor and the Cointreau also has a fantastically large impact on my wallet. So in the interest of being a little more economical, and also for variety, I want to try making daiquiris, drink of Hemingway when he hung out in Cuba. But I don’t know much about rum. I want a rum good enough to make a really smooth delicious drink, but not so good and expensive that it’s meant for drinking neat. I’m guessing I can do better than Bacardi without breaking the bank. I did not find any threads with “daiquiri” in the title. What do y’all recommend?
Since you are already using a reposado for margaritas you probably will enjoy an amber rum for daiquiris, although you’re supposed to use white.
Appleton Estate, Lamb’s Palm Breeze, Flor De Cana 4 Year Old (anejo or white) or Havana Club 3 Year Old if you can get it (This one is a white rum but very good). I’m sure others will be able to give you even more recommendations.
I’d go for one of the 3 following rums (in no particular order):
Brugal white (very good, and not expensive)
Cruzan white (by far the best bang for the buck out there)
Flor de Cana 4 yr (their white rum)
They’re all high quality, inexpensive rums, and IMO, better than more expensive brands like Bacardi, Matusalem, and Appleton Estate.
If you’re loving the margaritas, I’d consider going with Luxardo Triplum instead of Cointreau, and using Olmeca Altos (I prefer silver tequila in margaritas, but they have a reposado as well), since it’s inexpensive and excellent. Espolon is another excellent and inexpensive tequila as well.
What’s wrong with Bacardi? It’s $16.99/1.5L around here, and with the lime juice added you lose all the refined notes of the rum anyway. There are better rums for sipping, for sure, but for mixing? Nah. My guess is that a double-blind test would show that you can’t tell the difference until you really amp up the cost of the booze.
I agree with silenus. A daiquiri can be delicious, but the fruits and sweetness will overwhelm whatever difference you could have perceived in rum quality.
The blind taste test does sound like a good idea. “But dear, it’sh fer schience…”
Just bought a handle of Bacardi
Temperatures predicted over 100 degrees all weekend
Limes are on sale
The lawn is mowed, the car is washed FOR SCIENCE!!!
What are you testing it against? We need to know you are using a good sample size.
Personally I think Bacardi is pretty gross. But it has been years since I had it. I second the recommendation of Cruzan if you are going white rum, but would personally go with a golden rum to spice things up a bit.
2:1:0.5/ rum:lime:syrup. Maybe 3 parts rum if you are making a pitcher and using white rum.
I prefer Cruzan to Bacardi myself, but for a daiquiri I agree with everyone else that the difference will be negligible. I was not a fan of the Mount Gay, but YMMV.
Oh and if you stay 3:1 rum to lime and go all the way to dark rum (not black strap dark, just dark. Mount gay was mentioned, it’s good) and add a dash of bitters you get a different drink called planters punch which is good for a rainy summer day.
Stick with white rum but swap out syrup for raw sugar and muddled fresh mint and you have a mojito. (keep the bitters imo)
I prefer dark rum in my daiquiri. The basic is Myers I think it’s a bit too thick and would go Gossling instead.
Of course if you want really good dark rum come to my distillery I make the best stuff.
Cruzan (Virgin Islands) or Mount Gay (Barbados). For me, Puerto Rican rum like Bacardi is less sweet than those from the VI. I drank enough Cruzan to sink several ships when I was living on St. Thomas. I never got tired of it, and have a bottle in the cupboard as of this writing.
As already mentioned Flor de Cana 4(prefer gold). Best value rum I’ve found.
If you change your mind on neat, Centenario 7yo(borderline), El Dorado 12yo, and Plantation 20th Anniversary(no idea on aging but it’s my favorite) are all good. Like $15-40 for 750ml so cheap to mid.
Great suggestions! Not just for types of rum but drink ideas–
NAF1138, thanks for the ideas for planters punch and mojitos to mix it up a little! I know I like mojitos, never tried planters punch but I got a bottle of bitters in the fridge…
And bump, thanks for the recommendations for cheaper booze for the margaritas. A 750ML of El Mayor Reposado and a 375 of Cointreau was costing me close to $50, and that’s from a store that claims to have the cheapest liquor prices allowed by law in Michigan. It looks like Olmeca Altos and Luxardo Triplum will run me quite a bit less than that.
As for all the rum recs, I’ll have to make a list and see what’s available at my local liquor store. Checking prices online, the Cruzan is ridiculously cheap. Maybe I’ll try a Cruzan and something a bit pricier. And silenus, maybe I’ll get some Bacardi too and do a blind (heh) taste test.
Got a staycation coming up in a couple weeks, so the timing is good…
Fill a glass with ice. Squeeze a serious amount of lime juice into the glass. Splash the ice with bitters to taste. Add a shitload of Mount Gay (or some lesser rum) and top with San Pellegrino Blood Orange fizzy water. Enjoy.
