This post was made in partnership with Kerrygold Irish Cream. Recipe and ideas are my own.
This past Monday, in our Monday Booze News, I referenced that the newest wave of tiki cocktails and culture is turning down a darker road (I joked that it had become a moody teenager). This new turn, which is apparently referencing a much older version of tiki… just proves that the fantasy can be whatever you’d like it to be in your head.
What I’m getting at is this, Tiki cocktails have come a long way and these new modern nods are just as interesting, and sometimes, much more complex and delicious, than the originals. And today I have a very out there, very delicious, addition to this new wave, the Port Dues Cocktail.
If you’re a familiar reader around here you may have noticed that I partnered with Kerrygold Irish Cream a few months back and I have been experimenting with this Irish cream liqueur to show how versatile (and OMGGGGG so good) it is. There’s a lot of times people see a liqueur and box it into a known and familiar category, and I feel part of my job here is to break those rules. Sure, I made frozen Irish Coffee cocktails with it and Grasshopper brownies, but did you check out the edible cocktails and the egg cream??
So I’m super excited about this cocktail, with nods to some of my favorite tiki drinks and especially to the Missionary’s Downfall with the herbal, minty notes from the fernet. You’d be surprised, but there are actually quite a number of tiki drinks out there that incorporate a hint of chocolate in them too. Using the creamy, rich Kerrygold Irish Cream here gives this dry, rum forward cocktail with a sour punch an unexpected twist with a hint of chocolate at the end.
Could the Port Dues be the dark, brooding cousin to the bright and poppy drinks of the midcentury? Try one and find out!
Port Dues
1-1/2 ounces aged rum, Haitian 8 year used here
1/2 ounce tawny port
1/2 ounce Kerrygold Irish Cream
1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 ounce fernet
1 dash Angostura bitters
Garnish: mint and brandied cherries
In a shaker filled 2/3 with ice, combine rum, port, Kerrygold Irish Cream, lemon juice, fernet, and bitters. Shake 20 seconds and strain over a rocks glass filled with fresh crushed ice. Garnish with mint and brandied cherries.