Make You Strong Like a Lion

The thing that’s best if you’re feelin’ glum
Is coconut water with a little rum.

Are YOU going to argue with Harry Belafonte on the matter of tropical drinks?  You do know that he is Jamaican.  The song is Coconut Woman, and ever since I heard it, I’ve been hankering to try the drink.

Now that it is officially summer, and since I’ve had rum on the mind, today seems like a perfect chance to talk about this cooling beverage.

This cocktail is all over the Internet.  But I do love what the good folks at Esquire had to say on the subject of this drink and tropical drinks in general.  For the most part we are in agreement, but we have a few philosophical differences.

Esquire said to use golden rum, preferably from Trinadad.  The Trinidad part of that makes sense, since the writer experienced this drink in that country.  Being that I’d like to try the drink that Mr. Belafonte sings about, for me it is Jamaican rum.

But I’m not buying the golden bit.

Rum becomes golden in two ways.  It is aged in wood, and picks up its color in the barrel, or it is artificially colored.  You don’t want the latter.  White rum is young rum.  And philosophically I like putting similar things together.  I even bought a bottle of Herbsaint, the New-Orleans-made anise liqueur, when I first learned to make New Orleans’ signature Sazerac cocktail.

So in my mind young green coconut water should go with white rum.

And in Jamaica if you are drinking white rum, you are drinking Wray & Nephew overproofed rum, which notably is bottled at 63% ABV but also did extremely well in F. Paul Pacult’s recent ultimate beverage challenge.

My concern was that this heavy-hitter rum would totally overwhelm the coconut water.  But 1oz of rum to 2oz of coconut water produced a lovely, cooling and balanced island quencher.

Ideally I would be using fresh coconut water.  But regrettably I’m not that handy with a machete.  I did find canned, strained, and most importantly unsweetened coconut water at our local Hannaford for $.89 per 12 oz. can.  It is made by Goya and a product of Thailand.

Perhaps as the summer wears on, I’ll get ambitious and try to cleave my way through a green coconut to get the water from its core.  In the meantime, I’ll enjoy a summertime cocktail that is even easier to prepare than the Tom Collins.  Which frankly I didn’t think was possible.