Perfect pairs: Rum & coke

If you ever go down Trinidad | They make you feel so very glad | Calypso sing and make up rhyme | Guarantee you one real good fine time | Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola

This dated little ditty about Caribbean ladies (‘both mother and daughter’, apparently) entertaining American servicemen embodies an important truth. Rum and coca-cola does pretty well guarantee you one real good fine time. Oh is that stuff ever delicious.

It says tropical, it says holiday, it says kickin’ back and not giving a damn. It’s strong enough to be drunk by a rugged sailor, but sweet enough to taste good, and a fine enough mix to slip down nicely all night long. It’s a little naughty – and a little dirrrrty. Mmmm …

Now enough of this – why do rum and coke taste so great together? I’m talking DARK rum here: never use white rum with coke. Well essentially it’s the lesson we all remember from our almond and peach class – they taste similar anyway. Oak, tobacco, but predominantly brown sugar. Possibly burnt brown sugar, like the top of a crème brulee. (If you’re wondering about this, ponder the coke float – it’s crème brulee in a tall glass). Rum is made from molasses, of course. I don’t know about coke, but I’ll bet you a shooter’s sandwich it is too.

As well as matching up a treat, the ingredients’ own flavours also each fill a gap that the other needs – rum is so good, but it’s not sweet enough, whereas coke is too sweet.

Sweet + bitter = good
Brown sugar + brown sugar = good

Just to confuse you, if you taste hard enough, there’s a little bit of sweet in rum and a little bit of bitter in coke too. The flavours mesh, mes amis, they meld.

And lime? Why lime? Well, here the equation gets a third leg (do I mean leg? The decade since Maths lessons is catching up with me …). For the purposes of the diagram, I’m going to refer to the brown sugar effect as ‘burnt’, on the understanding we all know this is a positive thing.

Rum + coke + lime
Bitter/burnt + burnt/sweet/tangy + tangy

There’s an overlap each time, with each ingredient bringing out a key flavour in the other. But why lime, someone mutters at the back. Why not lemon? Because, in fact, lime is tangy and slightly bitter where a lemon is not. Therefore:

Bitter/burnt + burnt/sweet/tangy + tangy/bitter

The circle is completed, with all three in happy union.

And one more thing about lime: it smells like a tropical evening. What better way to make you feel so very glad?

Comments

[Nick]

Good stuff. But still not as good a rum and ginger beer