Caribbean Old Fashioned

A nice twist on a classic cocktail recipe, this cocktail is similar to your standard Old Fashioned but uses Rum instead of Bourbon. The cocktail also uses a little bit of juice from a jar of cherries to add some further unique flavours that go well with the Rum, as well as Orange Bitters, which add a slight tropical note to the drink.

An Old Fashioned is one of the oldest styles of cocktails, and, technically, you can usually make an Old Fashioned with almost anything. Of course some ingredient ratios may need to be modified slightly to make it right, but you can still make an Old Fashioned out of almost anything. This cocktail is a prime example of that.

Enjoy this cocktail any time, it's easy to make and easy to like.

Total Time 3

Servings 1 cocktail

Ingredients

60 mL Golden Rum
20 mL Simple Syrup* Or to taste, some like less, some like more.
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 dashes Orange Bitters
1 tsp Cherry jar juice
Garnish with orange twist and cherry (optional)

Instructions

Add all Rum, Simple Syrup, both Bitters, and Cherry Jar Juice to a chilled rocks glass and stir.
Add a large ice cube or a few smaller cubes to your glass.
Slip garnish to the side of the ice.

Notes

*Our Simple Syrup recipe is here.

Use high quality Golden Rum in this drink if you want it to taste its best. If you like it, feel free to play with other styles of Rum, you may find something special.

Also note the addition of Orange Bitters in this recipe. Most people will have Angostura Bitters on hand but may not have Orange Bitters lying around if they're not regular cocktail makers. While this drink will taste great without the Orange Bitters, it's not something to be skipped if you have it. Go out and buy a bottle for your bar. It's a must for a lot of other cocktails; it won't go wasted and you'll really thank yourself for having it.

Our Review of the Caribbean Old Fashioned

This is certainly an interesting cocktail! You can make an Old Fashioned out of anything, but very often some slight modifications need to be made to the formula of spirit, sugar, and bitters, and the Caribbean Old Fashioned does a great job of this.

Rum is very nice on its own, and has some natural sweetness to it, but it also can really open up with a little bit more as well as some bitters. The Angostura Bitters adds some spice here (which always goes well with rum) while the orange bitters and cherry jar juice add further flavours that give a hint of a tropical vibe. All in all, the Caribbean Old Fashioned is a simple cocktail, but there are plenty of interesting flavours in there to move this beyond just straight rum. It moves beyond just an Old Fashioned as well. If it lacked the additional ingredients of orange bitters and cherry, it would actually be verging on the ordinary. But it doesn’t.

Obviously I’m enjoying this cocktail but, at the same time, it’s hardly going to turn into one of my favourites. That may sound harsh, but with so many great cocktail recipes out there, one really needs to stand out before it reaches the top 10. However, it will be a fun cocktail to come back to from time to time as something a little different. After all, how often do you get to use the juice from a cherry jar in a cocktail recipe? That’s a weird one to find when finding cocktail recipes by ingredient.

Put the Caribbean Old Fashioned on your next cocktail menu, even if it’s just for a tropical beach themed party. It’s something different that people will enjoy and be impressed by. Then pull it out from time to time to change things up from what you usually drink.

7/10

Review by Chas

Take a look at other cocktail recipes with Rum in them

If you liked that recipe, we have a few more for you to look through. We’ve organised them for you so it’s easy:

Top 10 Rum cocktail recipes: we’ve sorted through all of our cocktail recipes so you can easily find our favourite ten. We hope you like them as much as us!

All Rum cocktail recipes: if you liked the list of our favourites but wanted more, just take a look at all of our Rum based cocktail recipes.

All Golden Rum based cocktail recipes: or just Golden Rum cocktails. You may not have a million different types of Rum at home, so we’ve limited it to just the one type for you.