Aged Rum, shaken
Air Mail
Barline 1h,Q,Q,2,R
The code is the shorthand off my printed menu; the Key tab decodes every letter.
- 1 1/2 oz Aged rum
- 3/4 oz Lime juice
- 3/4 oz Honey syrup
- 2 oz Champagne
Shake hard with ice, then strain.
Rocks, iced.
Taste
A rum sour of an ounce and a half of aged rum, three-quarters lime, three-quarters honey, then two ounces of Champagne over ice in a rocks glass. Honey is thicker and waxier than sugar, so the rum tastes darker than a Daiquiri. The bubbles and the melt are the lift.
History
The Air Mail first saw print in Bacardi and Its Many Uses, a 1930 pamphlet from the still-Cuban company. Jeff Berry, writing in The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, notes that Cuba began air-mail service that year, yet the pamphlet names no bartender. W.C. Whitfield's 1941 Here's How prints it as rum, lime, honey, and Champagne in a highball, with the line "It ought to make you fly high." Some later writers treat it as a rum French 75. The early printings, however, are a honey Daiquiri topped with sparkling wine and served long, over ice. The honey and the Champagne stay; the rum is aged, and it goes into a rocks glass with ice.
Same shape, other bottles
The Sparkling family, with the bottle that changed.
This is one drink on my home bar's menu. Tick the bottles you own and the menu lists which of all 185 drinks they pour.