The best thing about rum is that it’s super versatile and makes so many amazing cocktails. Whether it’s white rum, aged rum or our favourite, spiced rum, you can do so much with this great spirit.

Here are some of our recommendations of our best loved rum cocktails that we think you should try…

Pina Colada

The name of this cocktail actually means ‘strained pineapple’ in Spanish! It’s a drink of pineapple juice, rum, and coconut, served either blended or with crushed ice. It was actually declared the official drink of Puerto Rico in 1978 and still going strong in 2021.

To recreate one of these beauty, you’ll need 60mL White Rum, 30 mL Coconut cream, 30 mL Heavy cream, 180 mL Fresh pineapple juice and crushed ice. Simply pour the ingredients into a blender. Blend until smooth and serve in a tall glass and garnish with fresh pineapple and a cherry.

Mojito

The origins of this drink are just like the drink itself, a little murky: some say it was invented in the 1500s, others in the 1800's with the birth of Bacardi! In any case, its place as an iconic Cuban cocktail was solidified by the1930's by Ernest Hemingway.

Your classic Mojito recipe is 1 whole lime quartered, 1 bar spoon of fine sugar, handful of mint leaves, 60ml light rum and soda water. You’ll need to muddle the lime wedges and sugar in a highball glass add 1/3 glass of crushed ice.

Pour over the rum, stirring with a bar spoon, slap the mint and add to the glass, add 1/3 glass of crushed ice, stir. Top up with soda water and crushed ice, gently stir, garnish with mint sprig.

Daiquiri

We owe the greatest thank you to Jennings Cox for creating the amazing cocktail that is the ‘daiquiri’. Though many beachfront bars serve this cocktail as a slush, the classic version contains only 50ml of white rum, 25ml of lime juice and 10ml of simple syrup.

It’s best served when shaken, double strained, and served in a chilled glass and garnished with a lime peel twist.

Hurricane

This rum drink is so popular in New Orleans, it’s become an icon! Pat O’Brien created the Hurricane because he wanted to get rid of the rum he was forced to buy from his liquor distributor before he could get more scotch and whiskey!

An original Hurricane recipe is 50ml light rum, 50ml aged/dark rum, 50ml passion fruit syrup, 50ml lemon juice. Everything is shaken with ice until nearly fully dissolved, poured into a hurricane glass filled with crushed ice and garnished with an orange slice cocktail cherry.

Dark ‘n Stormy

Ok, let’s start with the ‘dark’. Back in the 1800s, William Gosling was selling liquor in London but him and his son wanted to venture out to America. Off they went in their ship but unfortunately their ship never arrived! Instead, James Gosling set up in Bermuda with the Gosling’s shop where they produced and sold one of the world’s best and most distinctive dark rums – Gosling’s Black Seal. They did this until 1914 when the Goslings started distributing their rum in champagne bottles. These bottles were sealed with a black wax which eventually gave the rum its distinctive name.

And then the ‘stormy’ allegedly came from a group of Royal Naval Officers Club who ran a ginger beer ‘factory’ nearby and as you can imagine, the two combined were a huge hit, especially with the sailors. After the success of this, other rums started mixing their rum with ginger beer to produce a drink of the same name.

Think of the Dark ‘n’ Stormy as a slightly elevated rum and coke. It’s basically 2 ounces of Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, a couple of lime wedges and ginger beer.

Planter’s Punch

Making its way to America from Jamaica, this cocktail’s recipe was inexplicably written in verse in every magazine that published the drink! Here’s the recipe from the Kansas Star in 1903: “One of sour, one of sweet, two of strong, and one of weak.”

In more simple terms, there recipe that you can follow is 3 ounces of dark rum, 3/4 ounces of fresh lime juice, 1 ounce of simple syrup, 1 spoonful of grenadine and 3 dashes of bitters. Everything is shaken and served over crushed ice in a Collins glass, finished off with a dash of soda water and a mint sprig.

Mai Tai

When Trader Vic first served this drink to friends from Tahiti, one of them exclaimed “Mai tai roaaé!” which to you and me means “out of this world… the best!” and they weren’t wrong.

The classic Mai Tai recipe is 25ml lime juice, 15ml orange Curaçao, 5mlorgeat syrup, 5ml simple syrup, 25ml aged Jamaican rum, 25ml aged Martinique Agricole rhum. Shake all ingredients over ice, pour into a double old-fashioned glass. Fill to rim with crushed ice. Garnish with a spent lime shell (peel side up) and a sprig of mint.

Zombie

The effects of this drink are exactly the reasoning behind its name – if you’ve ever had one, you’ll know why! Back in the 1900’s it was considered so strong that the bartenders were only allowed to serve two per customer. The drink has been around since the 1930’s and was created by Donn Beach. He actually created the drink for a customer who has complained about a bad hangover. Donn then created this ultimate hair-of-the-dog combination masking the incredibly high alcohol content with a tasty combination of fruit juices.

To make sure he shrugged off his competitors, Donn changed the cocktail recipe every few months, so there are now numerous variations of the drink. Some include falernum, absinthe and almond liqueur, while others have different varieties of rum, playing with the different flavours and strength of the drink.

Your classic Zombie recipe involves 20ml fresh lime juice, 15ml falernum, 45ml ounces each gold Puerto Rican rum and gold or dark Jamaican rum, 25ml 151-proof Demerara rum, 1 teaspoon grenadine, 6 drops Pernod, a dash of Angostura bitters, and 15ml Don’s mix (2 parts grapefruit juice to 1 part cinnamon-infused sugar syrup) in an electric blender with 6 ounces (3/4 cup) crushed ice, then blend at high speed for no more than 5 seconds. Serve in a zombie class with cubed ice and a mint sprig garnish.

And there you have it, our round-up of the best-loved rum cocktails. Check out our own creations and have a go at making some tasting rum cocktails yourself by heading over to our cocktails page.