

Stirred Rhum Cocktails at The Bamboo Room Chicago Banana Clarified Tí Punch Your choice of rum blend from an extensive menu mixed with fresh Lime Juice and Martinique Sirop De Canne served in the Traditional Style – shaken and served up, or over shaved block ice made from Cold-Pressed Pineapple Juice. House Daiquiri Program at The Bamboo Room Chicago The Bamboo Room’s menu has four categories of cocktails - Daiquiris, allowing guests to choose between four rum blends as a base Stirred, a trio of spirit-forward cocktails that spotlight the flavor of aged cane spirits through simple combinations Classic, which has iconic tiki drinks like the Mai Tai and Zombie served in vintage mugs sourced from tiki institutions and Modern, a collection of cocktails that each have a tiki element and are made with progressive techniques. As a small, intimate bar, his team can play with progressive techniques and curate cocktails that aren’t possible to execute at a high volume tiki bar. The rum-centric menu at the 22-seat Bamboo Room is led by beverage director Kevin Beary. Pour this tall drink on a sunny day, or any time when victories-either long term or short-are at hand.Chicago’s Three Dots and a Dash opened speakeasy space, The Bamboo Room, as a bar-in-a-bar concept. While we agree this could be good, we are rarely in the mood to mess with perfection. Some people like this drink with dry curacao instead of fresh orange juice.

Dram tends to be a little more intensely spiced than falernum, so consider cutting back a quarter ounce or more when substituting. If you don’t have both falernum and allspice dram, you can make this drink with just one (sorry to all the purists). If you don’t have that on hand, any combination of aged, black, or demerara rums would work well just be thoughtful about what you choose, and lean towards something medium-aged or smooth if you have it. If you have some, definitely reach that way it gives the drink sophistication without resorting to intense funky notes, which might overwhelm the other flavors. AOC Martinique is a set of production standards-like those used for bourbon and scotch-which helps deliver a consistent terroir. AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole Vieux is a generally expensive aged rum with a smooth character.

The excellent Smuggler’s Cove cocktail book recommends an ounce-and-a-half of AOC Martinique Rhum Agricole Vieux combined with a half-ounce of blended aged rum. Recipes can be very specific about what rum bottles to use, though most recommend a combination of aged and dark rums, usually emphasizing the former. If you do like using a blender, most books recommend a flash blend poured with a gated finish. We’ve never felt like this method held us back, and if you are a slow sipper, it can yield a longer window before the drink becomes watery. We don’t like using blenders to make our cocktails, so instead we shake it to the moon and back over crushed ice, then strain the drink into another glass filled with more crushed ice. This drink, like many from its era, calls for a blender. As with most tiki fare, this cocktail makes an excellent summer sipper, but its strong allspice, vanilla, and clove elements give it a complexity that transcends season. Citrus is reduced to a secondary role here.

This drink will reward lovers of tiki spice, as the double dose of falernum and allspice dram create a strong backbone that recurs through every step of the drink. Like most great tiki drinks, it engages the front of the tongue with citrusy flavors, before separating itself from the pack with a deeply transfixing wash of rum and clove. With joyous whiffs of cherry, clove, vanilla and buttery sugarcane, this drink smells like a magical tiki explosion. This makes it instantly recognizable to those in the know, though folks outside the know also rejoice, because hey look three tasty cherries. The name means “V” (for victory) in Morse code, and the trademark three-cherry garnish symbolizes the aforementioned dots. Originally created at the end of World War II by Tiki grand-pappy Don the Beachcomber, and lovingly revitalized by Beachbum Berry in his book Sippin’ Safari the three dots & a dash cocktail is fundamentally and undeniably tiki.
