The Kamala Cocktail
I’m not a bartender, but…. (photo by me)
Trigger alert: I’m a loyal Democrat, fairly liberal, and like tens of millions of other Americans who “conspired” to “steal” the election on November 3, 2020, I cast a legal vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So if any of that makes you upset, you can read something else here (99% of this site is non-political) or leave and never come back. OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way…..
Like pretty much everyone in NYC — barring Staten Island — I celebrated and caroused and pretty much spent all of last Saturday smiling after the election was called for Biden. And drinking too, of course. By the time 8:00 rolled around and it was time for the president-elect and VP-elect to make their victory speeches, I decided that, since we’d already had our vintage Pennsylvania rye in honor of Joe Biden’s birthplace, it was time to do something for Kamala Harris, whose birthplace was… Oakland. I own a grand total of zero Oakland-based spirits (if you know of any good ones, I’d love to learn more!), so Plan B was to honor her Indian and Jamaican heritage.
No problem there — I have a ton of Jamaican rum, and several bottles of Indian whisky. But how to combine them? I looked up cocktails that employed both rum and malt whisky, but everything I found (and there wasn’t that much) employed at least one ingredient that I didn’t have on hand. So I decided to make up my own Kamala Cocktail. Only problem is, I am pretty lacking in the mixological inspiration department. So after, oh, 30 seconds of hard deliberation (we were getting close to speech time), I went with something I was 99% sure would taste good — a mai tai using Jamaican rum, with a float of Indian whisky.
I used three rums — Appleton’s classic 12 Year Old expression, Proof & Wood Ventures’ brilliant The Funk, which totally lives up to its name, and a moderately funky 16 year old one-off that was bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society a couple of years ago. Hey, it was a special occasion! And for the float… I was thinking a peated whisky, but I didn’t have one from India on hand, so I went with an Amrut madeira cask-finished beaut. It went surprisingly well with all the funky vegetal notes from the rum, I’m happy to say. And I got them finished in time for me and the missus to lift our glasses to Vice President-elect Harris when she took the stage, resplendent in suffragette/Hillary white.
I think the finished drink was pretty delicious, but I’m looking forward to tinkering with it for at least the next four years. Stay tuned.
THE KAMALA COCKTAIL
Ingredients:
1 oz. aged Jamaican rum
1 oz. unaged Jamaican rum (depending on the rums you’re using, you can change the ratios — I used less of The Funk rum because it would have overwhelmed the Appleton at equal parts.)
1/2 oz. triple sec/orange liqueur (I used Pierre-Ferrand’s Dry Curaçao)
3/4 oz. orgeat
1 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
Float (maybe 1/2 oz. or so) Indian whisky (Amrut and Paul John are my go-to brands)
Directions:
Combine all ingredients EXCEPT Indian whisky in a shaker with plenty of ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into an ice-filled double Old Fashioned glass. (Mai tais generally use crushed ice, but the Kamala Cocktail calls for cubes, as large as you please.) Slowly and gently pour the Indian whisky so it floats atop the drink. Garnish with a lime wheel, hibiscus flower, a sprig of mint… or nothing at all. It’s all good.