A Drink Worth Making: Rum & Banana Old Fashioned

A touch of the tropics as the weather begins to dip + a video and batch recipe

TL;DR? The video and recipe are at the bottom.

A new line of business

While I’ve mentioned this a few times on various channels in the past couple of weeks, before we get to the Banana Old Fashioned, I want to tell you about the work I’m doing with the spirit company Spiribam in addition to my Decoding Cocktails work. As gigs with bars and restaurants on their cocktail programs began, one thing that jumped out was how often the rum in bars is sub-standard. 

While there is often room for improvement in many areas of a bar program, rum is such a broad category, that it is hard to clearly define and there has never really been an elevated brand of quality rum like Hendrick’s for gin, Tito’s for vodka, or Rittenhouse for rye that has compelled people to want to know more. As a result, most rum in bars is designed to have minimal flavor, mimicking vodka, or has artificial flavors and sugar to cover up poor/lazy production methods.

With this in mind, before I headed off to Tales of the Cocktail this year, I reached out to Ben Jones at Spiribam, who I’d met at the annual cocktail convention the year before. I explained what I was seeing and asked if there might be an opportunity to partner. Ben agreed to meet and we had a positive conversation, which led to a follow-up phone call after Tales, which led to him asking if I was open to being what is called a “liaison”, think of it as a role akin to a local brand ambassador. To be clear, I am not an employee of Spiribam, but I support them in a commission-based education role to taste and teach consumers and industry professionals about their products. 

The above was for context and as a disclaimer about this new line of work. You can learn more about their portfolio here, but I’ll also be sharing more about it over time. 

To the Banana Old Fashioned, I told myself that since I have to teach people about this stuff, as I learn about it and what it can be used for, I’ll share what I’m learning in posts and videos. So with that…. on to the cocktail!

Rhum, bananas, and a bit on liqueurs

Rhum Clément, a Rhum Agricole producer on the island of Martinique, recently released a banana liqueur called Bana Canne. Bananas are the largest agricultural crop on the island. That said, ~20% of a banana crop cannot be sold at retail because it is not deemed good-looking enough. So, to avoid having to sell it as animal feed or compost it, Clément used this product to create a liqueur (definition: liqueur is alcohol that has been flavored and sweetened). After they produce their Rhum Agricole, they combine it with bananas and sugar, then filter out the solids. Bana Canne clocks in at 25% ABV and as I discovered and people have validated, while it has banana aroma and flavor, it’s not overly sweet banana, but milder with a vegetal note. You get more green banana flavor.

As an aside for liqueurs, when they are in recipes, I often find this is where the average person at home and many restaurants who have begun to make an effort can improve their ingredient game. Education on liqueurs is not nearly as robust as spirits, so people might see a $38 bottle of Cointreau, a triple sec, and a $12 bottle simply labeled triple sec, and without understanding the difference, elect to save $26. I’m not advocating always buying the most expensive bottle, but what I find is that people are comfortable spending a bit more on their spirit, but misunderstand what a low-quality liqueur does to a margarita, Cosmo, or Sidecar. Cointreau is made using real oranges while cheaper triple sec uses orange flavor. Cheap banana liqueurs will use artificial flavors instead of actual bananas. 

Some liqueurs go well in old-fashioned-style cocktails, adding flavor and increasing viscosity. If you taste a spirit and liqueur side by side, you’ll likely notice that the liqueur coats the inside of your mouth, which helps lengthen the flavors. 

In addition to their Rhum Agricole, a sugarcane-juice-based distillate, Spiribam also supplies rum from St. Lucia Distillers, which produces molasses-based rums, which is what a majority of the rum on the market is made from. 

The cocktail

I grabbed two ounces of their Chairman’s Reserve Original Rum, which is a blend of rums around 5 years of age, married it with a 1/2 ounce of the Bana Canne, a 1/4 oz of 2:1 turbinado syrup (e.g. Sugar in the Raw), a dash of Angostura Aromatic Bitters and to avoid over-spicing the drink, a dash of Rhum J.M. Cacao Bitters, since bananas and chocolate go well together. I stirred all that and went with a lemon peel instead of orange, arriving at a delicious cocktail.

As an aside, with sweetness preference being a sliding scale, you can scale back on the sugar if you want, or, if you make it and discover that the drink is too sweet, adding another dash or two of bitters will tone it down help. That said, when I brought a batch to a liquor store last weekend, people loved it. The biggest thing to highlight about adding more bitters is I found that more Angostura, crowded out the banana flavor. The cocktail was still delicious but tasted more traditional.  

If you’re feeling fancy: After my success with the first version, next I subbed out a half ounce of the Original Chairman’s Reserve and added in a half ounce of their Forgotten Casks blend, which is an average of 8-11 years, making the cocktail even richer. 

Finally, with the fall and holidays coming up, below is a batch that will fit in a standard booze bottle, allowing you to single-pour this into a glass and serve it.