Cocktail of the Month: The Cable Car

The Cocktail of the Month for this May is the Cable Car Cocktail, created by Tony Abu-Ganim way back in the 1990s.  It is a delicious balance of spiced rum, sugar, and lemon, topped with a cinnamon and sugar rim.  

The cocktail was created for the Drake Hotel in San Francisco.  This is probably why the cocktail is named after the famous cable cars, which have become a world famous tourist attraction in San Francisco.  Basically, as an outsider, you have not truly been to San Francisco until you ride the antique transit system and hold on while it speeds up and down hills and zooms around corners.  While the name choice may have just been purely for name recognition, we believe that there may be a deeper reason.

Let us explain.   

While the cable cars in San Francisco are the most famous cable cars, there have been many other cable car systems in the United States.  One of the lesser famous was located in Seattle Washington on Queen Anne Hill.  Nicknamed 'the counterbalance', this cable car system assisted the street cars as they ascended and descended a very steep hill.  

Basically, street cars would be hooked up to an underground counter balance which ran in an underground tunnel under the street.  As the street car went up the hill, the underground weight would go down the hill.  As the street car went down, the weight would go up.  Think of it as a large scale version of the old window weights that help you open and close heavy antique windows.  

The purpose of the counterbalance was to help the street cars ascend, and descend without letting them speed down the hill to their demise.   Basically, we believe that this is the same thing that the Cable Car Cocktail does for spiced rum- it elevates it to a new level while not letting the drinker plunge to their spiced rum cocktail demise, which is ever too common when one drinks spiced rum.  It does this by ever so carefully balancing the rum, lemon, and sugar without overwhelming the drinker. 

It is a truly delicious drink that is worth trying, even if you normally shy away from spiced rum.  While the original was generally made with Captain Morgan, we have upgraded ours to Sailor Jerry spiced rum, lemon, sugar, and Cointreau.  We rim the glass with a special spiced sugar mix and serve it up in a cocktail glass.  For the whole month of May, this delicious cocktail is only $5 during Old Fashioned Cocktail Hour from 5-9 Monday through Friday and all night on Sunday.  

Cocktail of the Week: The Fernandito Cocktail

The cocktail for February 8 through the 11th is the Fernandito Cocktail, created by Gary Regan.

We chose this cocktail after searching for a better use for a common spirit: spiced rum. At Bryant's we are huge fans of rum. We use different varieties of rum in many, many of our cocktails. Light rum, dark rum, 151 rum, aged rum, Puerto Rican rum, Guatemalan rum, and yes, we even occasionally use coconut-flavored rum. The one rum we have found little use for is spiced rum. All of the Captain Morgan spiced rum we pour is mixed with coke. Not saying there is anything wrong with this, but there has to be a better use for spiced rum, right?

When someone wants a drink made with spiced rum, we find they will enjoy some of our house-made spiced drinks. The Navy Grog, the Fog Cutter, and the Scorpion are a few of the drinks we make with our own spice mixture. Personally, I feel these drinks blow any store bought spiced rum out of the water, but I may be a little biased. Or I may have had one too many Navy Grogs in my life (these drinks, by the way, are served in our ultra-cool skull mugs, which make them all the more mysterious).

For those of our guests who are not a fan of our house spice mix, we have finally found a cocktail that works well with store bought spiced rum. The Fernandito combines spiced rum (we are using Cruzan spiced rum, which has a heavy vanilla flavor), raspberry liqueur, lime juice, and orange juice.

The Fernandito has all the traits of a great cocktail- simple in ingredients, but complex in taste. It highlights the flavors of the spiced rum without being too boozy. This cocktail is so great, it will appeal to fans of rum and fans of spiced rum (yes, these are often two different groups of people).

Stop in during Old Fashioned Cocktail Hour this week and try the Fernandito for only $5. Follow it up with a Geronimo or a Hawaiian Eyes and make it a night!