You’d be forgiven if the very considered coconut rum was… not a great one. For a lot of the trendy cocktail revival, coconut rum has been kind of filed away as a product of youthful misguidance. Latest years, nonetheless, have seen the flavored spirits class shed its gimmicky status and turn into a critical pursuit for critical producers. Planteray was a pioneer on this realm when the model launched its pineapple rum in 2015, and now, its Reduce & Dry rum joins the fray as a fast-track technique to contemporary coconut taste—no fat-wash wanted.
In contrast to lots of the different coconut-flavored rums in the marketplace, Reduce & Dry leans on aged rum as the bottom, particularly a mix of column and pot nonetheless Barbados rum. The coconut taste, in the meantime, comes from ripe coconuts which were lower and dried—therefore the identify—within the solar to pay attention taste earlier than being infused into the spirit. The result’s a richly flavored rum with no hint of artificiality.
As somebody with firsthand expertise making an attempt all of the methods to coconut your cocktail, from fat-washing to coconut-aging, Reduce & Dry has turn into an instantaneous fixture of my residence bar for its capability to carry a tropical burst of taste to the classics. Swapped in for gin in a Negroni, the aperitivo staple takes on an overt tropical edge; it provides a straightforward but decadent improve to the Espresso Martini; it’s a shoo-in for the Piña Colada; and a no brainer merely topped with coconut water. It’s even ok to scrub away the reminiscences of unhealthy coconut rum.