We stumbled upon this by happenstance a few years back whenever I put a drink on a summer cocktail menu that called for brown butter-washed aged rum, rosemary tamarind syrup, demerara (2:1), and lemon. It was called the Brown Betty for a lack of a more creative moniker. I remember serving it to Goodman, him taking a sip, shaking his head, and saying “fuck you”. This might have been the start of our friendship, actually. Something about the drink just worked, and it was an easy sell. What was so good about this particular pairing? Specifically, what was the component of tamarind that played so well with aged rum?

Looking at the physical makeup of tamarind, we found that the predominant acid was tartaric acid, an acid that is also predominant in grapes and wine, and is responsible for the “wine diamonds” you sometimes find in your bottle of vino. Tartaric acid is also found in bananas and to a lesser extent in citrus, which might explain why these flavors go so well with rum in tiki/paradise/vacation-style drinks.

After the Brown Betty, I wanted to see if tamarind was just a happy accident, or if there was more to it. That next spring (2017) another friend and fellow bartender, Colby Poulin, and myself put together a couple of pop-up bars with help from Anna Mains. During our first pop-up, a Top Gun-themed endeavor, we served the Mach 2 With Your Hair On Fire, a build of aged rum, Dolin rouge and dry, demerara, and a tartaric acid solution. Incorporating the vermouth was another test of the rum and tartaric connection, given their wine bases. It worked again.

Eventually, I would eliminate perishable sources of tartaric acid altogether and came up with Wine Acid, a sibling to our CLM 6%, and put it to use in the Terracotta, a cocktail with brown butter washed-aged rum, rosemary wine acid, and demerara (a “distilled” version of the Brown Betty), and the Thru The Window which became the Howdy! which took home the award for “Best Signature Cocktail” in the 2019 USBG World Class Northeast region. Suffice to say, it’s a trick I’ll always carry in my pocket.

So, what’s good? Rum, specifically aged rum, and tartaric acid.

Try it out in:

Brown Betty
Mach 2 With Your Hair On Fire
Terracotta
Thru The Window / Howdy!