My winning cocktail for El Dorado Rum’s Heritage. A complex, balanced sipping cocktail celebrating the classic combination of aged rum & pineapple. Demerara sugar, baking spices, pineapple, coconut and a blend of El Dorado rums.
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1.5oz El Dorado 8
0.5oz El Dorado 12
1oz Spiced Pineapple Demerara Syrup*
0.25oz Dry Pineapple Tepache**
3 drops coconut bitters
3 Drops 20% Citric Acid Solution
1 dash 20% Saline Solution
Add all ingredients to a stirring vessel, add ice and stir for 20-30 seconds until the glass becomes frosted. Double strain into a rocks glass with ice and garnish with a dehydrated pineapple slice.
*Spiced Pineapple Demerara Syrup
1 Whole Pineapple
Demerara Style Sugar
1 Cinnamon Stick
20 cloves
10 allspice berries
1 star anise pod
Slice the top and bottom of your pineapple off and save the fronds for cocktail garnish. Wash the pineapple thoroughly. Slice the remaining entire pineapple including core and skin into small -roughly bite-sized- pieces. Weigh out the weight of all this flesh, core and skin and transfer to a non reactive vessel. A cambro works just fine. Add an equal amount of Demerara style sugar as well as your cinnamon, star anise, allspice and cloves. Stir this up and cover and leave for approximately 24 hours at room temperature. 24 hours later, the mixture should be largely broken down into a thick syrup with lots of sugar and flesh at the bottom. Add approximately 1 cup of boiling/hot water and stir to lift and dissolve the remaining sugar. Pour all of this mixture through a mesh strainer and run another cup of boiling/hot water over the pineapple sitting in the strainer to wash any additional sugar off. Then stir the mixture to dissolve any remaining sugar to reach a consistency of roughly a 1:1 syrup. Bottle and enjoy! Keeps for 10-14 days.
**Dry Pineapple Tepache
1 Whole Pineapple
1 Cinnamon Stick
10 allspice berries
10 cloves
1 litre of filtered/distilled water
100 grams of brown/demerara sugar
Slice the top and bottom of your pineapple and save the fronts for cocktail garnish. Wash the pineapple thoroughly. I find a 2 litre mason jar works the best for this and the whole process can all be done inside this vessel. Stir your sugar into your filtered water until dissolved then add your allspice, cloves and cinnamon. Slice up your pineapple flesh, skin and core into small -roughly bite sized pieces- and add all of this into your mason jar and cover with cheesecloth or a tea towel and rubber band this to the rim of your jar. Leave out at room temperature. Inside a cupboard works fine and will stay out of the way. Check on this after 24 hours and make sure you can see some bubbles/fermentation happening. The secret to a very dry tepache is simply time. I like to leave this for 20-25 days for the fermentation process to really eat up a lot of that sugar, resulting in a much more dry and almost vinegary tepache. Strain out all of the solids through a fine mesh strainer and then run the strained mixture through a coffee filter to catch any residual particulate. Bottle and refrigerate. I’ve never had this go back before I’ve consumed it, so shelf life shouldn’t be an issue.
