Post #795815 by Hurricane Hayward on Fri, Jun 21, 2019 7:50 PM

Thanks to manager Kern Mattei, I was able to piece together a more accurate history of the dark Jamaican rums employed in the back bars at The Mai-Kai. I'll get into this in much more detail soon, but I wanted to reveal it here now since all those attending my class and symposium already saw this ...

By several twists of fate, I was able to taste all of those over the course of The Hukilau, with the exception of the 1950s Dagger. However, there's a bottle in the back bar from that era that I still hope to get a sip from soon ...

I'm hoping this is the original Dagger Punch blend that dates back to Don the Beachcomber. It's at least from the 1960s or '70s. More investigation to follow.

As noted above, Dave Levy was generous enough to share an unopened bottle of Dagger Punch from the 1990s ...

This is the later blend that other folks have found in the wild. But remember that it's not the original Dagger. It clocks in at 87.6 proof, the same as Kohala Bay. The original Dagger was 97 proof. This timetable and the fact that Kohala Bay came immediately after the final Dagger blend, packaged in a similar plastic bottle, has led many to believe it's the same rum. After tasting them side-by-side at The Mai-Kai, I can assure you they're not. The rum in that bottle of Dagger had wonderful, rich molasses notes that I've never tasted in Kohala Bay, or any other current Jamaican rum.

But that wasn't even the best dark Jamaican rum I tasted all weekend. Stephen Remsberg, my special guest at our Okole Maluna Cocktail Academy class on Saturday, brought a selection of rare rums that he generously encouraged us to use in abundant amounts ...

The mysterious rum in the green box will be discussed later elsewhere. It and Lightbourne's from Barbados were probably the best rums I tasted all weekend, despite being bottled 40+ years ago. But let's talk about Appleton Punch. All I can say is "wow." It's the missing link between the '50s-'60s era, 97-proof Dagger Punch and the 87.6-proof version from the 1990s. According to Kern, The Mai-Kai used it for quite a few years when he worked behind the bar in the early '80s. But they apparently didn't save a bottle. At 97-proof, it packs the same wallop as the early Dagger and a similar taste as the later version.

We put it to good in the class, mixing up two authentic Barrels 'O Rum with pre-batched ingredients provided by The Mai-Kai. All we had to do was add the rum. To complement the Appleton Punch, we used the white Ron Rico rum from the 1970s. The result was unequivocally the best Rum Barrel I've ever tasted. No contest. Now I know what Mariano Licudine intended it to taste like. The same molasses notes are prevalent, but not quite as intense (possibly due to the age of the bottle, or the higher proof). But the heat and complex flavors were still there. Luckily, a third of the bottle remains for me to experiment with ...

Perhaps we should be trying to duplicate the flavor of the 97-proof Dagger/Appleton Punch blend, not the 87.6-proof Kohala Bay. No guarantees, but I'll definitely be experimenting in the coming months.

I almost forgot to mention the biggest news in the grand scheme of things: The Mai-Kai's new replacement for Kohala Bay, which was rolled out in April. Everyone who took the back-bar tour got a taste of the multi-rum blend neat. I've tasted and re-evaluated all of the cocktails that use it. For the first time in years, you can taste the Jamaican funk in most of them (some more than others).

What's in it, you ask? I really can't reveal that, other than to say it's similar in style to one of my suggested substitutes. Same concept, but slightly different. If you're in striking distance from The Mai-Kai, you'll have to taste all the drinks and see what you think. Some of the suggested substitutes listed above are very close.

I'll be updating all my reviews and adding tasting notes in the coming weeks, hopefully between small sips of Appleton Punch.

Okole maluna!

[ Edited by: Hurricane Hayward 2019-06-21 19:59 ]