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.