Dark and Stormy
Dark rum floated over ginger beer, unstirred, over ice.
GFDL 1.2 · Cropped, white-balanced, graded and re-encoded to WebP by eXir.
A Dark and Stormy in a tall glass over ice, the dark rum still visible unmixed above the paler ginger beer, garnished with a lime wedge
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring. Dilution is modelled rather than measured, as a fraction of the poured volume before any ice; dotted figures descend from that estimate.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
120 ml ginger beer
50 ml dark rum
½ lime (11 g)
- 120 ml ginger beer
- 50 ml dark rum
- ½ lime (11 g)
- ~43 ml water
Glass
Vessel
170 ml of liquid plus 230 ml of cubed ice occupies about 400 ml, inside the 400 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 1m 20sFill a Collins glass with ice.
Pour in the 120 ml ginger beer.
Pour the 50 ml dark rum slowly over the back of a bar spoon so it sits on top rather than mixing in, and leave it unstirred.
The rum goes in last, poured slowly over the back of a spoon so it sits on the ginger beer rather than mixing into it, and is left unstirred. The dark cloud sinking through the pale mixer is the drink's whole visual point, and stirring it away loses that for no gain in flavour.
Set a lime wedge on the rim.
Common pitfallThe name is a registered trademark of Gosling Brothers, tied to their own Black Seal rum; a bar serving the same build under this name with a different dark rum is using a protected name for a drink the trademark holder does not recognise as the genuine article.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
A Bermudian rum-and-ginger-beer highball tied to Gosling Brothers' own Black Seal rum since shortly after the First World War, and protected in the United States by a registered trademark since 1991.
Gosling Brothers has distributed rum in Bermuda since the mid-19th century, and its own account places the drink's creation on the island shortly after the end of the First World War, combining its Black Seal rum with a locally made ginger beer 1.
What is not in question is the trademark. Gosling Brothers holds a United States registration on the name, dating to 1991, that specifies the drink as one and a half ounces of Gosling's Black Seal rum topped with ginger beer in a highball glass 2. The company has used that registration to challenge other producers marketing a rum as suited to a "Dark 'n' Stormy," including litigation against a rival spirits company and a cease-and-desist letter sent to a cocktail blog over a suggested substitution 2. Some bars and writers now describe the same ginger-beer-and-dark-rum highball made with any other rum under a different name, such as "safe harbor," specifically to stay clear of the mark 1.
The result is a drink whose name is legally, rather than just conventionally, tied to one producer's rum. This is an unusual position for a cocktail name to be in, and the reason a bar list will sometimes carry both this name and a near-identical drink under another one.
- 1Dark 'n' stormyen.wikipedia.org
- 2There's Only One Way to Make a Dark 'n' Stormy Without Breaking the Lawsmithsonianmag.com