Welcome back, friends - it's Anders. Today we are making the Queen's Park Swizzle.
If you like a Mojito, you're gonna love the Queen's Park Swizzle.
I'm all ready for tiki, but this drink is actually not a tiki drink. It pre-dates the tiki era, which happened in the 1930s.
This one is older than that, but it has tropical origins, served on crushed ice, it's swizzled - which is fun.
So I feel it fits right in with tiki drinks.
In fact Trader Vic himself said,
"This is the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today."
Did I say that right? "Anesthesia?"
Never mind!
Trader Vic talks about this drink, and he really liked it. if you're new to the channel
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And let's go make the Queen's Park Swizzle.
To the bar.
[intro music]
This cocktail was born in a hotel - which is actually pretty common.
A lot of older cocktails were born in hotels, because hotels were very important places - they were social hubs.
This cocktail was the house cocktail of the Queen's Park Hotel in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
And this hotel was grand.
It was all thanks to a man named Edgar Tripp, who in 1895 opened the Queen's Park Hotel.
January 15th.
I don't -
I don't I don't know why the date sticks. That's not important, but a year earlier, in 1894, he started a company.
The Electric Light and Power Company.
And so then the Queen's Park Hotel became one of two buildings
to be the first to have electricity and electric lights in all of Trinidad.
Sadly, the hotel's not there anymore.
In 1996 they tore it down, and they put up an office complex. Maybe it's a beautiful office complex.
I don't know, but I doubt they're drinking Queen's Park Swizzles.
So..
For the tools, I've got a swizzle stick, but you can use a bar spoon.
If you have a swizzle stick though,
grab it.
Because how often do you get to use this thing?
We're gonna need a collins glass. This is the ultimate swizzling glass.
We're just gonna build it right in here. Jigger - to measure out our booze.
A straw - to drink our booze.
That's pretty much it - mint!
We'll need mint, and then ingredients. That's it.
Now the booze.
We're going to need rum,
fresh lime juice,
a rich Demerara syrup,
and bitters.
The rum I'm using is El Dorado 12 Year, and the bitters is Angostura Aromatic Bitters.
This is a Demerara rum, which is what most recipes call for.
Now, Demerara rum is made in Guyana, and this cocktail was born in Trinidad.
But the thing is, the time that this cocktail was created, most likely, they were using rums from Guyana.
Because they just had a more robust rum scene at the time. So that's what I'm using, and it works really well in this.
But you can use whatever rum you'd like.
As for the bitters, for me, it has to be Angostura.
It's made in Trinidad, so this is where Trinidad's represented. It also is just really good in this drink.
I love the heavy clove of Angostura in this cocktail. I've seen other recipes that will use Peychaud's Aromatic Bitters -
which is also very good, but I like the punch of Angostura in this drink.
Let's build.
We're going to build this cocktail right in the glass.
So get your mint, and I'm going to take all of this.
I'm going to say 8 to 10 mint leaves.
Just right in the bottom.
If you want, you can give them a smack - release some of the oils.
And I'm not going to muddle. I don't want pulp at the bottom of this drink,
but I am going to press down a little bit to release some of the oils.
And one thing I like to do here
is I like to slide the mint leaves up against the inside of the glass.
That's just going to leave some of the mint oils kind of all the way up the glass.
My secret technique.
Yeah - cool.
Let's add the rum.
Two ounce of rum.
I'm going to add half an ounce of our rich Demerara syrup.
Three quarters of an ounce of our fresh lime juice.
Some people will add the bitters right into this mix - just to incorporate everything.
and that will taste really good, but I like to float it on top.
If you have your swizzle stick, drop it right in there.
And then add crushed ice -
which I've got here.
You want it crushed pretty fine.
Drop it in. You don't have to fill the glass all the way up, but a good amount.
I guess that's almost all the way up.
Kind of move it around to loosen things up, and then we can swizzle.
You kind of want to lift the cocktail up, but I try to keep most of the mint at the bottom.
Because I'm going to drink this through a straw, so it's going to pull through the mint.
I'm going to use a spoon.
See, it also works.
It'll start to foam up,
and you'll see the side of the glass start to get nice and cold.
And now top it off with crushed ice. And we want a good snow cone effect
that we're going to saturate with the bitters. Now we can go ahead - top this off with the Angostura Bitters.
I never count the dashes. I really just go by how it looks.
So one, two - I put a lot in.
Let's say it's probably four to six dashes.
There's quite a bit.
Now we get these nice layers. Green, gold..
whatever color this is.
And then a big sprig of mint.
Drop it right in.
Like that.
Doesn't this look good?
Take your straw, put it right next to the mint.
And when you push it down, it's actually grabbing some of the bitters with it.
So there's a little bitters in the straw.
The Queen's Park Swizzle.
Cheers!
Oh - god that is so good.
Mmm
This is as refreshing as a cocktail can be. Like a Mojito, but more complex.
The rum has a nice richness that's really good, and holds up to all the crushed ice, to the citrus,
and then you get this cooling mint, and the spicy bitters. And they just work so well together.
I just wish I could be in some grand hotel right now.
But that's okay - this works too.
Az, would you like to try this?
Mmm
That's really good!
Yeah.
It's kind of like an elevated Mojito.
Yeah.
And it looks really cool too.
Make this one. All you need is some rum..
..and stuff.
Thank you for watching. If you like this video, like and subscribe.
Do yourself a favor and try one of these cocktails. I think you'll be very happy.
Hit that subscribe button for more..
..information.
I'll see you next time.
[music fades]