Cradle Of Life

Well, the Cradle of Life, it was love at first sight. A few weeks ago me and Niklas went to the 2 years anniversary of the Old Fashioned Cocktail Bar in Ghent where the opening was announced of The Drifter, a brand new cocktail bar in Ghent specialized in Tikis. After drinking a few there, I got inspired to try out some Tikis myself. I loved the fruity taste, the use of different kinds of rum, the way it felt like summer in my mouth. So I woke up one morning and decided to look up some recipes.

The Cradle of Life was the first recipe I stumbled upon which was within my budget, and of course, the flaming garnish was an awsome extra. I already had the spiced rum, the white rum, lime, lemon, orange and Angostura Bitters. The only thing I still needed was orgeat syrup and Chartreuse Vert. So, I took my brand new notebook, wrote down the recipe and went into town to find the missing ingredients. In the Mobile Liquor store I had no trouble finding the Chartreuse and the orgeat syrup so I was ready to give it a go.

I knew I already had the perfect spiced rum: Sailor Jerry. A delicious rum with a vanilla and cinnamon taste which Niklas described beautifully in his blog about the Queens Park Swizzle. For the white rum, I decided to stay in my budget and I already had a bottle of 3 year old Havanna Club. All the other ingredients were easy to find since there is a fruit store just around the corner of my flat. The only thing I couldn't find were the right glasses. I would have loved to serve this drink in a Tiki mug or glass but these are bloody hard to find. I decided to use an old fashioned glass instead. Not quite the same but it did the trick. In the meantime I found a website where I can order nice Tiki mugs and glasses but this wasn't in my budget in the time.

The glasses however were not my only problem. All the recipes I found for this cocktail were measured in ounces. The jigger I have was in millimeters. I decided to adjust the recipe a bit so it would be easier to measure all the juices, rums and syrup. I invited a friend (and later my partner in crime Niklas) to try out my latest finding and the result was smashing. We all agreed this was one of the best experiments we had tried so far. It was fruity yet the flavor of the rum was not lost. And the coolest part is that the drinker is given a choice: add the burning Chartreuse to the cocktail or not.

So this is how I did it:

-3 cl of spiced rum (Sailor Jerry)
-3 cl of white rum (3 year old Havanna Club, there probably is better but it is what I had at the time)
-1 cl of lime juice
-1cl of lemon juice
-1cl of orange juice
-2 cl of orgeat syrup
-2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Shake all these ingredients in a shaker filled with ice vigorously. Strain this in a glass filled with crushed ice. Add a juiced lime shell to the glass and fill it with Chartreuse Vert and finally light it on fire. Please do watch out cause this one will get you wasted ;).

Cheers

Oskar