Bermuda Stormy

Dark rum floated over spicy ginger beer with a squeeze of lime — Bermuda's rum-and-ginger tradition, built with any good Bermuda-style dark rum rather than the single brand the trademarked name requires.

The Bermuda Stormy is a rum highball built on the same Bermudan tradition that produced the internationally recognized Dark 'n' Stormy — dark rum combined with ginger beer and lime over ice in a format specific to Bermuda's rum and maritime culture. Bermuda's relationship with dark rum dates to the Gosling family, English wine and spirits merchants who set up shop on the island in 1806 after James Gosling's ship, bound for America with a cargo of spirits, was becalmed and put in at St. George's, Bermuda instead. His younger brother Ambrose joined the growing business a decade or so later, and their descendants renamed it Gosling Brothers in 1857. Gosling's Black Seal rum, blended in Bermuda from Barbadian, Trinidadian, and Jamaican rums, provides the specific molasses-rich, dark character that Bermuda's drinking culture built its signature cocktail around. Ginger beer has been produced in Bermuda since the 19th century; Barritt's Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, first bottled in 1874, is the most historically associated brand with the island's ginger beer tradition. The Bermuda Stormy's visual layering — dark rum poured over ice and ginger beer to float on top — is a presentation technique that creates the drink's dramatic storm-cloud appearance before the drinker stirs or drinks through the layers.