Bumbo!

A couple of weeks ago, the stork from Amazon dropped a of Wayne Curtis' And A Bottle Of Rum at Dirty Old HQ (more here) and between that at Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, we got a little carried away. One thing that really jumped out was drink called bumbo (also bombo) , which Curtis describes as "a mix of rum, water, sugar, and a bit of nutmeg".

First of all, a bit of history. Curtis ascribes the name to have come from the British Admiral John Benbow, famed for having his legs blown off during the War of the Spanish Sucession, for reasons that are unknown. Wikipedia suggests that the drink's popularity during the "era of piracy" is down to the fact that it tasted "better than British Navy Grog". Bumbo is one of the original rum cocktails, from the time when a man could say "Arr, me hearties" without being in a movie or wrong in the head.

For our purposes, we decided to combine the basic flavour profile of the old-style bumbo with the slightly more refined technique of a treacle. We've opted for Mount Gay Extra Old for authenticity's sake - Barbados being the cradle of Caribbean rum and all - but any dark, aged rum will suffice.

Bridgetown Bumbo
- 50ml Mount Gay Extra Old
- 2 barspoons Molasses sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 nutmeg seed
- 1 dash Angostura bitters

Dissolve the molasses in the base of a mixing glass with the bitters and a touch of water if required. Flake off some of the cinnamon into the glass and add some grated nutmeg. Add a couple of ice cubes and stir. Start adding the rum, little by little, and continue stirring, adding more ice as you go. Don't dissolve the ice completely - the whole process shouldn't take more than a minute or two. Finally, fine-strain the cocktail into an ice-filled Old-Fashioned or Rocks glass and garnish with the remainder of the cinnamon stick.