Dark and stormy

[woggers]

Anybody drink dark and stormys? It's a boater drink, dark rum and ginger beer - very tasty.

Anywho, I was thinking that a sparkling ginger mead would make an excellent substitute for the ginger beer, adding an additional alcoholic kick and an additional level of flavor.

Here's the questions:
1. Has anybody done this?

2. What was your specific recipe and would you change anything?

3. What do you think of my recipe?
Here is what I was thinking of doing for my "Double Dark and Stormy":
Water and honey to achieve approx 10%abv
Safe ale 05 and a lot of ginger (how much ginger to replicate goslings ginger beer?)
Back sweeten slightly (only to bring out the heavy ginger flavor)
Carb (again, recommendations appreciated? Looking for the "soda" mouthfeel")

 

[aarong]

As a heads up there's a mead section in the forum. I would recommend posting there you will prob get more responses. Sorry I can't be of any help.




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[Bob]

Wow. That's ... powerful.

Me, I make my own ginger beer (locally-grown ginger, turbinado sugar, and bread yeast). Then I add rum. If I want a stronger kick, I add more rum.

But then, I live less than 20 miles from the Cruzan distillery!

To get to soda carbonation levels, I recommend conditioning in plastic or metal. We're talking 3-4 volumes, here. I use empty 2-liter soda bottles to ferment my ginger beer. I just watch it like a hawk, burp it when it needs to be burped, and fine-tune the carbonation that way. When it gets where I like it, I stick it in the fridge. Even so, I always open it in the sink.

My dark-n-stormy goes like this:

Fill tumbler with ice (I use a beer pint glass)
Add Cruzan Dark rum to about half the glass
Add ginger beer to within 1/2" of the rim
Float Cruzan Blackstrap rum
Add 2 drops of Angostura bitters
Serve.

I'm sure there's recipes for ginger beer on here somewhere.

Bob
(I love where I live!)

 

[Renoun]

Honey is expensive and sugar is cheap. If you are just going to get ginger and rum flavors why go to the effort of making a spiced mead?

Personally I like making strong ginger soda by steeping lots of chopped ginger in hot (but not boiling) water, adding sugar, and force carbonating it in a 2.5gal. corney keg. The last couple of batches I've added a few cardamom pods and a couple birds's eye chilies too. Makes great dark 'n stormies and leaves something special the designated driver can drink too.

 

[Preturbed]

The best dark and stormy is Blenheim and Kraken. I would be interested in making something gingery and experimenting with it, but I can't imagine out-ginger-ing Blenheim.