Dark 'N' Stormy Recipe
‘Mummy! The sky is dripping. Again.’ So it is. He must have coined the phrase our first summer here. June 2012, and I wanted to turn the heating on. Since then, I realise the sky drips most days. From October to May especially. If you ever see the sun, step outside immediately, find a space to stand, chin upturned, and allow it to hit your face. You probably have ten minutes before the clouds regroup and recover.
London rarely has anything as fancy as thunder, or lightning. Just torrents of rain, billowing gusts of wind, interspersed by periods of varying dullness. A prolonged silent, bleak season of inclement weather makes winter evenings reliable. The hallmarks are a feeling of cold fingertips, drudging clouds, a sky not raked over by a single bright ray, too many people too close together doing too much of the same thing.
I often tell newly arrived expats, ‘if you survive your first winter here, you will grow to love it, I swear.’ But, on more instances than I would admit to them, I come home, hunched, eyes downturned, damp to my bones. I look at my husband. His expression says, ‘I’ve had the same kind of day, and it is melting into too many identical others.’ Both of us suffer a crowded commute on the Northern Line, surrounded by wet, musty outerwear, barely masking the odour of sweat coming from every tightly packed body.
After nine years, I am well prepared for that expression. The term cocktail originated in the seventeenth century. The tail feather of the family rooster would be plucked and dipped into alcoholic bitters to dab on sore tonsils. A long history of the creative use of alcohol to help what ails us.
I take two heavy tumblers from the wedding crystal I once saved for guests. We must be pampered for a moment, reminded of our motives, of better days, better weather, better spirits. With an inward smile, I fill the glasses with ice. He smiles as he watches me move around the kitchen, and the first of the clouds break.
Next, a dash of Angostura bitters and a generous grating of nutmeg go into each tumbler. Angostura too comes from the Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago to be specific. Just one person knows the formula and they pass it on to the next generation. Its recipe is a trade secret, like Coca-Cola.
My Dark and Stormy is an ode to Marlon. Strictly speaking, he wouldn’t include using either of these ingredients. My additions are borrowed from his Old Fashioned (Rum Punch). A two-fer, I combine in one glass. Closing my eyes for a moment, breathing in the spicy aroma, I can almost see Marlon at the hut by the water sports rental, a knowing smile as he knows I’m coming for the first cocktail of the day.
I measure out thirty-five millilitres of dark rum, specifically English Harbour five-year, a classic dark rum with a hint of spice. Marlon would use a three-year English Harbour. He wouldn’t measure it. The extra ageing is more decadent than used in situ. Rum is the star of the show; it has a big responsibility. We picked up a couple of bottles on the way home in the airport duty-free shop because if we run out, a suitable substitute is untraceable. I know, having tried the best wine shops, and fancy liquor stores in the capital. Whichever brand, no matter the cost, the resulting drink won’t taste like home.
I top with ginger beer. We always keep Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. It is important that the base be ginger beer not ginger ale as Dark and Stormy rely heavily on an assertive ginger flavour. We have tried other makes, but this one always wins, perhaps it’s the ‘made with real Jamaican ginger root’ aspect. In Antigua, his ginger beer is often homemade by an aunt - shipments of the commercially made variety are irregular.
I add a lemon wedge for garnish.
Eyes shut, as I sip, I can almost feel lightness behind my eyelids, sand underfoot, salty skin, and surf sounds. I am transported to a calm place overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, at the end of a different kind of day.
There, a Dark and Stormy isn’t expensive or difficult to find. On that beach, a cocktail gilds the lily. Here, where the sky drips, and the sun is unreliable, we must imbibe the provenance of our ingredients to replicate the feeling of brightness, warmth: Jamaican ginger beer, Antiguan rum, Trinidadian bitters.
Written by Anu Pohani
I am an Asian-American living in London with my family and Alfie, the Tibetan terrier. My essays and short stories have appeared in Entropy, Untitled Voices, and Honey Literary, among others. I can be found on Twitter @AnuPohani.
