Dark ’n’ Stormy

The dark ’n’ stormy has become a cult highball due to a felicitous combination of its no-fault simplicity and the balance of its headstrong ingredients, each of which is perfectly suited to the common goal: reviving the flagging, heat-pummeled constitution. It is simply dark rum — very dark rum — with ginger beer and some fresh lime. The rich spirit is shaken awake by the buoyant piquancy of the ginger beer, while the lime slashes through the sweetness of both. The drink has its roots in Bermuda, and emigrated up the Atlantic seaboard with the sailing set. Gosling’s rum has a rather sniffy and debatable lock on the recipe, having in fact trademarked its version, even going to the point of threatening with the specter of litigation anyone who might suggest concocting one with another rum. Gosling’s is a delicious rum, and being the dark rum from Bermuda, it is unquestionably synonymous with the dark ‘n’ stormy. But, any number of dark rums are interchangeably lovely in this drink, including Coruba, Zaya, Cruzan’s Blackstrap and the Lemon Hart 151 from Guyana.