If there were a rum that was worthy of invoking the name of Coltrane, it would be Smith & Cross. It’s complex, demands revisiting, and rewards those who head down the garden path. And just like Coltrane’s magnum opus “A Love Supreme”, Smith & Cross begins with a gong. The nose has wonderful notes of pickling spice, reminiscent of pressed sugar cane rhum agricoles from Martinique or cacha�as from Brazil. On the palate, the flavor is at one moment familiar, another moment exotic, and ultimately finishing with a high-proof flourish that certainly piques the curiosity.
“I think Smith & Cross is a rum-drinker’s rum,” says rum expert Matt Robold, who blogs under the name Rumdood, and who named it his rum of the year of 2009. “I think it might be hard for people who are just coming into rum or who are barely leaving the comfy confines of Captain or Bacardi Silver for broader horizons to get into right off the bat.”
While comparisons to other sugar cane spirits are the natural starting point for judging Smith & Cross, I find it best to actually look across the Atlantic to Scotland. In the same way that Jamaican pot still rums are its own flavor profile beast, so too can that be said of the scotches made in Islay (and to a lesser extent, Campbelltown). There’s a funkiness that can be difficult to enjoy, and even more difficult to describe. Smith & Cross is the Ardbeg of rums.
“The combination of the Navy Strength proof and the completely unapologetic funk just encapsulates a bygone era of rum that I’d like to see come back,” continues Robold. “Fewer soft edges for the masses and a great embracing of what rum and its many styles are supposed to be: big and different.”
As a result of its bold flavor, Smith & Cross stands up very well in cocktails. A Mai Tai is a perfect vehicle, as it is contrasted by the sweet and sour elements as well as complementing the other paired rum nicely. Smith & Cross also works well with herbal pairings, and so liqueurs such as Chartreuse (another beast of its own) pairs wonderfully with this rum. In fact, a Smith & Cross variant of the Last Word is one of the few variants in which the base spirit doesn’t really play second fiddle to the Chartreuse. Allan Katz of Ca�a Rum Bar has another cocktail, appropriately called A Twist On A Twist, that uses Amaro Ciociaro as the herbal foil to the rum.
Robold emphasis the need for rums like this to exist. “[Smith & Cross] reminds us that rum was not always about sophistication or frat parties, but rather about islands and pirates and wooden ships. I think Smith & Cross really captures all of that.”
Addendum
Paul Clarke recently mentioned funky rums like Smith & Cross in his post about hogo.
Here are two cocktails of mine to use Smith & Cross
Smith & Scaffa
Combine all ingredients together and stir with no ice. Serve up.
- 1oz Smith & Cross
- 1oz Novo Fogo aged cacha�a
- ½oz Cointreau
- ¼oz orgeat
- ¼oz vanilla syrup
This is clearly an homage to ice-less stirred scaffas, normally using brandy. I love a good mai tai, and I’m always on the hunt for new mai tai variants. The Smith & Cross and Novo Fogo play well together to give a strong and interesting backbone to the drink, and are all good enough to be drunk on their own. The sweet elements provide the mai tai structure to the cocktail.
Follow that up with:
Rope BurnStir, express a grapefruit peel then discard
- 1oz Smith & Cross
- 1oz Aperol
- 1oz Bonal
I credit Justin Pike from The Tasting Kitchen for introducing me to the Aperol and Bonal combination. A cocktail appears on his menu that uses all amari as ingredients. I find that the Smith & Cross rum takes the bitter elements away and replaces it with funky and sweet notes. All three ingredients could dominate a drink by themselves, but perform remarkably well when mixed together. The grapefruit peel provides just the right amount of acidity to balance the drink out.
