The “other story” begins…

To explain, allow me to pull a large portion from a previous blog entry almost verbatim:

I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of - futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.

The small bit of research I’ve done so far has taught me that Ginger beer is made in Bermuda, England and also (of all places, Mass and RI. Yay, close to home. (Triangle trade route anyone?) I’d figured the (exact) rum was going to be the toughie… searching the web, well, the soda merchants aren’t exactly easy to find. (Despite one of them in RI mentioned in an episode of one of Rachael Ray’s shows)

So far I’ve tried one Ginger Ale I found at Trader Joes - missing one ingredient - Quillaia bark (whatever that is), but does contain sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup (also missing from sodas made in and around the tropics). The verdict. Nope. Not even close. I was told that Root beer would also work, but I didn’t milk these 2 liters of jinja just to resort to some A&W or IBC.

There is a natural foods store up the road from me that carries a ginger ale with the mysterious quilllaia, but does regrettably have the HFCS I’d rather it not. So I’ll give that a shot next, but in the meantime, does anyone have access to anywhere that sells the real deal (Barritts) or perhaps knows of a micro-soda-brewery making the good stuff, and willing to ship?