Bumbo

Ahoy, mateys! I be Cap'n Dildarian.

Me bimbo wanted me to share me bumbo recipe with ye on this special occasion. As ye might know, gentlemen of the sea as I share sparingly, so take heed. Me bimbo has a variation where she uses water instead of pomegranate juice. That would be me bimbo's bumbo. Here be mine:

Dildo's Bumbo

Ingredients

6 oz Appleton VX
3 oz Appleton Extra
3 oz Coruba
3 oz Wray & Nephew White Overproof
3 oz pomegranate juice
1 tbs grated fresh nutmeg
1 stick Ceylonese cinnamon
4 tbs raw sugar (turbinado, muscovado, or demerara)
? tbs more sugar
1 750 ml capacity bottle

How to Make

Part I

Combine the nutmeg with the W&N WO.
Combine the sugar with the pomegranate juice.
Drop the cinnamon stick down into the bottle and pour in the Extra.

Part II

Combine the nutmeg white rum with the Coruba.
Combine the sugar and pomegranate with the VX.

Part III

Pour the nutmeg white and dark into the bottle.
Pour the sugar and pomegranate rum into the bottle.
If there is more room in the bottle put more sugar to personal taste.
If it needs more sugar and there's no room, drink off enough to make room.
Cap it off and shake well.

Part IV

Basically, it's ready now, but the longer you wait to use it the better it gets. As it sits, more nutmeg and more cinnamon essence is extracted.

To chill, wrap a wet towel around the bottle and let it sit in a strong breeze OR place it in a net tied to a line and drop it into the cold sea for a bit.

Serves 12 landlubbers; or 4 scurvy dogs; or 1 pirate

*Ahoy there, mateys! Now hark and avast!
Really bad eggs! Up the mizzen mast!
I got me some bumbo that's ready to go
Drink up me hardies! Yo ho!

— Cap'n Dildarian Pumpernickel*

Very interesting.

But I may have to adapt this to some of my Rums Which Are Not Worthy. Note that I will not do this with my Rums Which Suck because there's no saving them, but I do have a number of rums which are good, just not good enough.

Though, I have to agree, this recipe seems rather perfect and certainly well-thought-out. Though I might take a chance and add some allspice - with all that Jamaican rum in there it just seems natural to consider the addition of allspice. Though perhaps replacing some nutmeg would be a better plan...

There are all different kinds of bumbo in the pirate's world. Bumbo is the pirate's answer to the royal navy's rum ration. The navy crews were subject to very limited resources, whereas the pirates pillaged the best and were not forced to use rotten limes. The royal navy had to suffer long voyages, so their perishibles...perished. Pirates, OTOH, were island hoppers who had the luxury of spices and fresh juices if they wanted, and the best rum; as well as unworthy rum, no doubt.

Traditional bumbo is basically rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg. As you might imagine, this basic recipe was constantly modified by mood and availability. Allspice would be an excellent variation. Pirates can make their bumbo any way they want, unlike the royal navy crews. I just gave the recipe for Dildo's Bumbo and Dildo's Bimbo's Bumbo. :lol: In their case, it called for decent rum (all Wray & Nephew produce).

I agree that rum that simply sucks should not be consumed. It better serves as a solvent for cleaning furniture.

Concerning Rums That Suck...

I'm a long-time fan of the mad scientists at Infusions Of Grandeur (http://www.infusionsofgrandeur.net/) who do infusions using vodka. They take a scientific approach, trying variations and keeping careful records. Great info for infusions.

Anyway, they filter cheap vodka using a Brita water filter pitcher, and they filter it a few times until it's smoother. I've read some stuff about this and it sounds like something worth trying. That is, take Rum That Sucks and filter it a few times and see what results. Hey, all white rums are filtered, right?

But will several passes remove too much taste? Yes, this seems like a fine thing to do to vodka, where you kinda want to achieve tastelessness. But for rum?

Anyway, the next step would be rum infusions. I can think of all sorts of things that would taste great in a rum infusion. The Bumbo's ingredients are the link here, since the Bumbo is basically an infusion.

Again, the possible loss of taste would be a concern, so this requires a test. Infusions, of course, are a series of tests. And it is possible to think about adding some taste back into the resulting infusion by blending. A little Appleton Extra - let alone Lemon Hart demerara - would add quite a bit of taste to an infusion.

Just some thoughts that the Bumbo brought to the surface...

Oooooweee! This sounds great. I've recently stocked the rum shelf so can make a version (w/ some variation.) Thanks for sharing. I love that it can be pre-made and just waiting for me to drink on those nights when I am too exhausted to even squeeze a lime.

What? You don't have any furniture that needs to have built up wax or polish removed?

I think of both Not Worthy and That Suck products to lack artisic care in the distillation and blending process. They are artistically careless. They are produced with quantity in mind rather than quality. They have all the goodness processed out of them and then they get doctored back into some sort of marketable condition. The ones That Suck get a lot less doctoring.

While I personally think that Bacardi, its second label (Castillo), Ron Rico, and rums of that ilk suck, I'm reluctant to relgate them to the completely hopeless. So, I guess I'd have to call them Not Worthy, even though there are lots of better rums around that I think of as Not Worthy.

The hopelessly awful, ergo That Suck, candidates for me include any kind of "store brand" rotgut that sells for $6.99 regular price per 1.75 L plastic bottle. It smells more like rubbing alcohol than anything else, but not as clean. The label should say "wax remover" rather than "rum" on it. Believe it or not, I do have a wild recipe that calls for this very rotgut. I call it Hot Parts Punch. It's really quite bizarre. I doubt that many, if any, would ever make one, but if you ever do, you'll really get into it.

I appreciate your verve for experimentation. That's how magical potions are created. As for the Bumbo, I brought it up today because it's September 19, "Talk Like A Pirate Day."

Argh! D'ye think ye have it in ye to pass a pirate quiz?

On 2007-09-19 10:45, The Gnomon wrote:
Argh! D'ye think ye have it in ye to pass a pirate quiz?

I made it to the end and it said "Arrr! Ya Beuty!" or something like that. I think I won, even though it seemed that I didn't do too well.

Anyway, back to rum...

Rums That Suck - Appleton White, Myers's White, Bacardi Superior, Castillo, Ronrico, DonQ Cristal

Rums That Are Not Worthy - These are more or less good rums, just boring or have some other flaw, like too much of a burn. Take Barrows Grand Reserve, for instance, which I reviewed and said: "It’s not bad at all, but not in a league that I’d call “tasty.” Mellow is a better word for the taste." Prichard's Crystal is an amazing rum for its exemplary distillation methods. It's smoother than most 12-year-olds, and it is not aged a single day. But it doesn't have much taste at all. Gosling's Gold is OK, but the peppery spiciness hides all the more subtle tastes.

And of these in the Not Worthy class just need a little help. Gosling's might make a good start for a mellow spiced rum, though it could also use a kick of demerara. Dumping some dark fruits - raisins, figs, dates - into Barrows might make it into something worth drinking. Prichard's Crystal could be used for a nice base, especially for some light fruits and mild spices. (Hmmm... A bunch of apples and then tiny hints of cinnamon and vanilla and nutmeg... yum.)

I'm beginning to think that I have a good winter project ahead of me...

On 2007-09-19 09:22, Sgirl wrote:
Oooooweee! This sounds great. I've recently stocked the rum shelf so can make a version (w/ some variation.) Thanks for sharing. I love that it can be pre-made and just waiting for me to drink on those nights when I am too exhausted to even squeeze a lime.

Yep. In fact, chilling it was a luxury for pirates. They mainly didn't bother. You should try it at room temperature or when it's been sitting in the sunlight. Gets in your system real fast.

I recommend doing a few smaller batches first so you can get your rum, sugar, and spice selections to your liking. Once you've got your basic formula down, it's easy to tweak it with corrections when you make a full-sized (e.g., 750 ml) batch.

On 2007-09-19 11:20, Scottes wrote:

On 2007-09-19 10:45, The Gnomon wrote:
Argh! D'ye think ye have it in ye to pass a pirate quiz?

I made it to the end and it said "Arrr! Ya Beuty!" or something like that. I think I won, even though it seemed that I didn't do too well.

Anyway, back to rum...

Rums That Suck - Appleton White, Myers's White, Bacardi Superior, Castillo, Ronrico, DonQ Cristal

...

Yeah, you won. When you lose it says you're too late and hangs you from the yard arm. Hey! What do you want. It's the History Channel.

I agree with your suck list....or suck genre...there are many more of that category unnamed. I was considering them on the bottom end of the Not Worthy spectrum (rather than the That Suck spectrum) because they are useful when serving people that absolutely have no appreciation for rum and would not notice if you made their drink with Pyrat XO instead of Don Q.

But even for the completely oblivious, the rotgut I spoke of would be cruel punishment (I don't know about how unusual), except under extraordinary circumstances, such as my Hot Parts Punch. I don't know if I should post that punch here. It could gross some people out. Then again really cheap rum should gross them out as well anyway.

A little bit of an update... I made a half-batch of Bumbo on Saturday. I didn't want to take the chance of wasting too much rum and I had 375ml bottles.

I halved all the ingredients, which left the bottle far from full (Note: If you leave some room in the bottle it's easier to shake, and shaking daily is good). So I dashed in another ounce of V/X and 2 ounces of pomegranate, because that mix was rather strong, even for me (I always drank rum neat, but so many dark rums...)

I also got off the beaten track a bit, and grabbed 8 whole allspice, zested half an orange, and cut off 2 inches of vanilla bean and threw all that in, too.

I tasted it tonight in case I needed to adjust things. The nutmeg was too strong for me - fresh, grated nutmeg gets powerful. The vanilla was good, but I like more. And the orange wasn't sufficient, and neither was the cinnamon. So I strained it, threw all the spices out. I added 8 fresh allspice, another inch of vanilla, and another 3" stick of cinnamon (come to find out this cinnamon wasn't very potent). I wish I had another fresh orange.

But... This stuff is delicious so far. It should be a little better come Saturday when it will be consumed.

Definitely recommended!

On 2007-10-08 17:22, Scottes wrote:
But... This stuff is delicious so far. It should be a little better come Saturday when it will be consumed.

Definitely recommended!

That's another thing about bumbo you bring up. A batch actually takes on a life of its own. Because it is a concoction with a somewhat vague recipe, it begs to be altered as often as the wind changes direction. Sounds like come Saturday, Cap'n Scottes will be three sheets to the wind. Drink up me hardy! Yo ho!

I'm glad to see you don't truck with that Cassia nonsense.

On 2007-10-23 14:50, Melintur wrote:
I'm glad to see you don't truck with that Cassia nonsense.

Don't get me started. I have to wonder why my cinnamon was so weak... Is it cassia? Is it really cinnamon? Is there any way to tell beyond taste and smell, since weak or old cinnamon could taste and smell like cassia...

Hmmm, I found this:

"True cinnamon quills or sticks will be curled in a telescopic form, while cassia quills curl inward from both sides, like a scroll."

If that's true, then I have cassia. Dammit! Ripped off again!

All that aside, I forgot to post a final update... The nutmeg, which was grated fresh, was too much. Go easy on the fresh stuff! And it was also too sweet, so another recommendation is to add the sugar near the end of it being done, and slowly add more if necessary.

Though most at the party liked the stuff, a few didn't care for it. Next time it will be better. "One experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions."

You can get both in the spice section of World Market.

Cassia is like spicy bark, thick and hard. Ceylonese cinnamon crumbles easily, has a velvety quality, and a stronger cinnamon essence. They're related. But just as Persian limes and Key limes are related, yet distinct, cassia and cinnamon are just similar to each other, Ceylonese being the real deal.

Check this out if you want a Ceylonese cinnamon exporter's comparison.

Cassia makes a damn fine cinnamon roll, or is good whenever you're looking to have that spicy, strong flavor. I stock both in my spice cabinet, and use each when the recipe demands.

But which for mixing? I recently did a test comparing Cassia syrup and Ceylon syrup in the Donga Punch recipe from Sippin' Safari. The Cassia cinnamon version was a spice-fest and unbalanced (though I managed to choke it down). The Ceylon cinnamon version was balanced, delicate, delicious! I am in seek of some definitive history on the subject.

I have also noticed that the ethnic mexican spice aisles here on the west coast stock only Ceylon-type cinnamon, though I haven't yet purchased a bunch to test the age or quality.

Thank goodness we have a Penzey's in Portland. The prices are a bit steep, but their quality is multiple factors above your local grocery aisle. The exceptional quality more than makes up for extra expenditure.

NW Tiki Presents TIKI KON V: Venture into Darkness!

[ Edited by: Melintur 2007-10-24 09:20 ]

Yep, I got cassia. I seriously want to find real cinnamon now, just to compare (even though I don't think I need to do so).

On 2007-10-24 09:12, Melintur wrote:

Thank goodness we have a Penzey's in Portland. The prices are a bit steep, but their quality is multiple factors above your local grocery aisle. The exceptional quality more than makes up for extra expenditure.

Great. Turns out there's one not too far from me in Rockville MD. I'll have to drop by and check it out.

Dang, there's a Penzey's just 2 towns over... Cool.

Considering Bumbo, and spicing rums in general, what would you consider to be worthwhile spices? What ones would you consider "must have" spices?

Vanilla
Nutmeg
Allspice
Mace ???
Star Anise

What else? I'm forgetting important stuff I'm sure....

On 2007-10-24 13:07, Scottes wrote:
Dang, there's a Penzey's just 2 towns over... Cool.

Considering Bumbo, and spicing rums in general, what would you consider to be worthwhile spices? What ones would you consider "must have" spices?

Vanilla
Nutmeg
Allspice
Mace ???
Star Anise

What else? I'm forgetting important stuff I'm sure....

as I experiment more, I'll post my opinons on what I like together, but I'll take your source spice list and add to it:

Vanilla
Nutmeg
Allspice
Mace
Star Anise
Ceylon Cinnamon
Cardamom
Cloves
Ginger
Orange zest
Lime zest

Though I read through the (primary source and reference lacking) internet that an orginal mix is but allspice and nutmeg.

NOTE: (not that I'd suggest all those are used at once, but that's a list I would draw from)

[ Edited by: Melintur 2007-10-24 16:37 ]

Very nice list... I'm ready to go hit Penzeys...

...
3 oz Wray & Nephew White Overproof
3 oz pomegranate juice
1 tbs grated fresh nutmeg
...

OK, when you say pomegranate juice, you mean to get a pomegranate and try to get some juice out of it or just get some commercial juice? I can't find POM here in Barcelona, the only brand I can find is Rubicon, you think that will do the trick?

Thanks!

http://bastardosaffrin.blogspot.com

[ Edited by: BastardoSaffrin 2007-10-28 12:25 ]

Whatever you can find, really. Heck, orange juice wouldn't be bad, though I'd use a lot less.

BastardoSaffrin, if there are any Middle Eastern Markets there, you should be able to find Pomegranate juice.

Yes, there are plenty of them, I'll have a second look. Thanks!

POM pomegranate isn't that great. It's OK, but it is made from concentrate with flavoring added. How great can that be.

Make your own juice from pomegranates if you have the patience, but just about any pomegranate juice you find will suffice, especially, if it's not from concentrate (which is unlikely).

REMEMBER, bumbo is like a wild horse. Try to ride a few colts before you mount a stallion. That is, try out small batches until you get the ingredients and proportions palatable to your taste.

But if you FORGET that fact, hope is not lost as bumbo is conducive to being continually modified until the bottle dries up. What starts out as say 750 ml could end up being 3L before the bottle goes dry because you could be constantly adding more rum, juice, spices, etc. tweaking the batch as you go along.

Regarding Scottes comment about running low quality rum through a filter, they did this with vodka on an episode of Myth Busters. They lined up several top-shelf vodka samples along with samples of cheap vodka that had been run through a Brita filter various numbers of time, and had a professional taster do a blind test. He was able to line then up in order, with the top shelf samples coming in first, and the filtered samples according to the number of times it had been filtered (I think some samples were run through up to four times).

The conclusion - you can improve cheap vodka, but you can't make it top shelf. Plus, when you figure the cost of the filters, it is more economical to buy the top shelf.

On 2007-10-29 08:28, Tiki Zen wrote:
The conclusion - you can improve cheap vodka, but you can't make it top shelf. Plus, when you figure the cost of the filters, it is more economical to buy the top shelf.

So it looks like to CAN make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you CAN'T spin straw into gold (unless, of course, you're Rumpelstiltskin). Even so, silk purses can be quite fashionable.

That test you excavated makes sense for any kind of liquor. Top shelf rums are distilled using high quality materials and processes, and are blended with care and skill. Cheap rums use cheap materials that contain a lot of crap, since it's cheaper to not bother eliminating the crap during production. It's reasonable to assume that filtering some of the crap out using an activated charcoal filter would make a noticeable improvement, but you can only do so much with a sow's ear.

The guys over at Infusions Of Grandeur have been filtering vodka for some time for their infusions, Recently they tried filtering rum & gin & tequila. Basically, the filtering removes too much of the flavor from these spirits, so it's only worthwhile on vodka.

http://www.infusionsofgrandeur.net/2007/09/things-we-do-in-name-of-science-part.html
http://www.infusionsofgrandeur.net/2007/10/things-we-do-in-name-of-science-part.html

Damn! So the silk purse only comes in one color.

Incidentally, this filtering is also why so many white rums lack flavor. Most are aged - Puerto Rican 1 year, Cruzan 2 years, Flor De Cana 4 years. They get a lot of color from the barrels in that time, but then they filter out the color to get white rum and lose much of the flavor as a result of the filtering. You can thank Don Facundo Bacardi for that - though folks like the Bum and Wayne Curtis have tried Bacardi from 1925 and it was much more flavorful than tonight's white rums.

On 2007-10-29 17:58, Scottes wrote:
They get a lot of color from the barrels in that time, but then they filter out the color to get white rum and lose much of the flavor as a result of the filtering.

That explains why I never really get into white rum. The only one I stock regularly is W&N WO for its uniqueness and versatility. Ran out of charcoal starter fluid the other day and the old WO did the trick.

It's also very good to clean silver.