A Rum Old Fashioned for Everyone

3 ways to make this underrated cocktail.

The rum Old Fashioned is underrated. 

It’s underrated because Old Fashioned fans tend to be obsessed with whiskey. (Fair enough, whiskey is delicious.) 

It’s underrated because outside of hardcore tiki heads, most people don’t pay enough attention to rum. And tiki heads? Well, they like tiki drinks. (Again, fair enough: Tiki drinks are delicious.) And although you can certainly take it in a tiki-ish direction — see last week’s pineapple Old Fashioned — the Old Fashioned is not a tiki drink. 

It’s underrated because not enough bars put rum Old Fashioneds on their menus. Again, fair enough. Why would they? Old Fashioned drinkers, after all, are whiskey people.

And now we’re back where we started. 

But this newsletter began with a declaration that (almost) anything can be an Old Fashioned. And as far as I’m concerned, the rum Old Fashioned is the only base-swapped variation to truly rival the whiskey Old Fashioned. The reason why is that it’s the only other Old Fashioned to offer the breadth, depth, and exploratory possibilities of a whiskey Old Fashioned. 

Let me explain what I mean: If you want to explore whiskey — learn the category, its quirks, its nuances, the particularities of the major and minor brands, and so forth — but you don’t want to drink a lot of whiskey straight, the best way to do that is by drinking Old Fashioneds. The difference between a Wild Turkey 101 Old Fashioned and a similar drink made with Elijah Craig or Old Forester is immediately apparent. The same goes for the difference between a rye Old Fashioned and a bourbon Old Fashioned — or, for that matter, one made with Japanese whisky or Scotch. 

There are some edge cases and limitations, of course: Some whisk(e)ys — especially unusual bottlings — might not make the best Old Fashioneds: I have bottles of 140 proof Tennessee whiskey as well as some very light Frenchy whisky that I probably wouldn’t use in that format, at least not solo. Intense, peaty Scotch usually only works in an Old Fashioned as a complement to another ingredient. Have you ever tried making an Old Fashioned with a Mesquite whiskey?¹ Maybe don’t, unless you have a really nifty offsetting element. 

But that’s part of the fun of it. You can learn the ins and outs of the spirit category, and appreciate the differences between brands and bottlings, just by drinking Old Fashioneds. The Old Fashioned is a gateway to the wide and wonderful world of whiskey.

The same goes for rum Old Fashioneds. Rum is arguably the most varied spirit category: A bottle of Flor de Cana extra dry is rum; a bottle of Smith & Cross is also rum; so is a bottle of the Scarlet Ibis. They don’t really look or taste very much like each other, and while they share some foundations, they are produced in different ways. 

Just as you can learn a lot about whiskey by drinking different whiskey Old Fashioneds, you can learn a lot about rum by drinking different rum Old Fashioneds. If anything, rum offers an even wider array of options, thanks to its versatility. 

As with whiskey, there are limitations: Most light, bright, unaged or minimally aged rums — the sort of dry, sharp rums that make great summer Daiquiris — are not going to make great rum Old Fashioneds, at least not on their own. Similarly, you probably don’t want to use intense, overpowering 151 rums except as accents or complements.

But even these limitations offer learning experiences: Understanding what doesn’t work is often as important as understanding what does. And the breadth and variety of rums means you can take a rum Old Fashioned in almost any direction, guiding it toward whatever end you want, by selecting the right bottle — or bottles. 

Yes, as with tiki drinks, rum Old Fashioneds often benefit from rum blends and combinations. It turns out our rum-blending tiki-head friends do, in fact, have something to offer here.

So this week, we’re going to look at three ways to make a rum Old Fashioned: an easy version with a single rum, an easy-drinking blend with two bottles I’ve recommended in this newsletter before, and another blend that gives you a richer, fuller, darker drink. 

We’ll use a number of rums, but nothing too esoteric. Mostly, we’ll look at how picking the right rum, or rum blend, can alter the character of your drink. The final entry, which is my personal favorite recipe for a rum Old Fashioned, also uses an unusual sweetener — PX sherry — that elevates the drink, taking it in an almost Manhattan-y direction. 

In other words, there’s a rum Old Fashioned for everyone. Even if you don’t make all of them — or, for that matter, any of them — what I hope to demonstrate is how varied and intriguing this single drink idea can be. 

A Rum That Drinks Like a Whiskey

If you want to make a single-rum Old Fashioned, a good place to start is with a rum that drinks like a whiskey. There’s an obvious choice.