Post #578031 by aquarj on Sun, Feb 27, 2011 10:29 PM

The "Rum Gum & Lime" has been one of my favorite drinks at Tiki Ti for a number of years - I like rum drinks where the rum itself is one of the foreground tastes, plus there's also still something exotic about the other flavors in that drink, the way they make it.

Beachbum Berry's Sippin Safari has a recipe for a drink called Rum Gum & Lime, but it's practically impossible to make since it calls for a defunct Cuban rum called Infierno. And that's even beside the point, because even with a substitute premium rum, it's clearly a different recipe from the magical mix at the Ti. So in aimless speculation about what's in the Tiki Ti RG&L, someone with limited creativity and imagination like myself might craft the deeply insightful hypothesis that the ingredients include rum, gum syrup, and fresh lime.

In particular I thought maybe the gum syrup could be the special flavor I detect at the Ti, having some unique quality that makes it different from anything I've been able to reproduce with simple syrup. Gum syrup boils down (haha) to another kind of sugar syrup / simple syrup, with gum arabic added to increase viscosity and to give a kind of velvety feeling. It's also known as "gomme" syrup if you like to use extra letters when you spell things. There've been a few mentions of it here on TC, like this thread about homemade simple syrup experiments with different sugars. And I really like Tiare's post about gomme syrup on her great blog, A Mountain of Crushed Ice, where as usual every image is mouthwatering.

But despite the chorus of enthusiastic do-it-yourselfers, I'm just not that kind of guy, so I've been keeping an eye out for a gum syrup product so that I could buy-it-myself and consume-it-myself. Good old Monin makes a "gomme syrup" but predictably that's one of the offerings they've chosen NOT to sell in the United States, no doubt out of respect for any American sensitivities lingering all these years after the great gomme scare that swept the nation in 1908. So you can get the Monin gomme from online stores in the UK and such, and pay an arm and a leg to ship it stateside if that's where you hang your hat. Not really a great option for us though.

Then today in San Francisco I came across a gum syrup on the shelf at D&M Wine on Fillmore. Made by Small Hand Foods from Berkeley, it's a small but expensive bottle. Interestingly, the Small Hand website lists places where their products are available, and that list doesn't include D&M, but there it was. The Small Hand website also lists restaurants and bars that use their ingredients, including places like the Alembic bar in San Francisco. So, I snapped up a bottle of the gum syrup (at the risk of sounding more and more like a commercial, D&M also sells it through their website).

Getting home, I threw myself into the preparation of an amateurish home version of Rum Gum & Lime. YUM! But still, more like a blunt instrument compared to the beguiling Tiki Ti drink. More experiments will follow, particularly with different rums because of the major role they play in the drink. But in the meantime, I just wanted to share about the availability of this stuff in case anyone else has been on a similar path.

And if anyone just happens to know the Tiki Ti recipe, I can't think of a better place to post it!! Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if it's ridiculously simple and I've been imagining the exotic factor. But it's still a favorite.

-Randy