Lumber Jill

A recent Thursday Drink Night theme was TDN: Bubbles – Champagne, ginger beer, soda, tonic, cola, or anything else fizzy.  

I felt this an appropriate occasion to revisit a theme I fell in love with when I discovered the Lumber Jacques, figuring I could use bubbly ginger beer instead of fresh ginger.  I think the richness of the maple goes really well with the spice of the ginger and rye and the herbal notes from the Chartreuse, balanced by the two citrus juices.  Thinking of ginger beer reminded me of one of my wife's favorite drinks, the Jamaican Firefly, which she always orders whenever we hit Pegu Club (often directly before dinner at Lupa), so I decided to switch things up more and sub Rum for the Rye.  Which gave me a good excuse to bust out my newly acquired Smith&Cross Traditional Jamaican Rum, a very funky and strong rum.  I had heard good things, (check out this post at Oh Gosh! for a good review and description of this spirit) and turns out the things I heard were well founded.

Lumber Jill

• 1½ oz Smith&Cross Traditional Jamaican Rum
• ¾ oz Green Chartreuse
• ¼ oz Grade B maple syrup
• ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
• ½ oz fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes angostura
• touch salt
• ~3 oz ginger beer to top (Reed's Extra Ginger Brew)

shake and strain over fresh ice, top with ginger beer

The name is an obvious derivation of Lumber Jacques, but figured it was a bit less burly both with rum instead of rye and the fizzy ginger beer lightening it up a bit.  Not that a man should be ashamed to drink it, the drink proved reasonably popular at TDN and I very much enjoy and am proud to drink it.

One comment from TDN was the lack of garnish, someone suggested something green like perhaps a sprig of some food safe pine, and someone else countered with a sprig of rosemary shot through an orange wedge, which I think is a fine idea.  I might even toy with a sprig of cilantro.  But I've yet to experiment with such accouterments, so play around.

Oh, and I didn't take a pic and am too lazy to rectify that oversight, certainly in part because I never settled on a proper garnish.