Queen's Park Swizzle

Serve in a

Garnish:

Lime wedge, mint sprig & straws

How to make:

1. Lightly MUDDLE mint with rum in base of glass. Use your bar spoon to raise the bruised mint up and around the inside of the glass to coat with fragrant mint oils.
2. Add other ingredients and two-thirds fill glass with crushed ice.
3. SWIZZLE with a swizzle stick or CHURN (stir) with a bar spoon.
4. Fill glass with more crushed ice.

Review:

This close relation to the Mojito is drier, more complex and tad less minty than its sibling. Some like to finish this cocktail with a hefty dose of bitters to colour the crushed ice atop the cocktail but as Martin Cate says in his 2016 book Smuggler's Cove, "even though the bitters look pretty when floated on top, the drink tastes much better when they are swizzled with the rest of the ingredients." Two dashes integrated with the other ingredients is plenty.

History:

Created at the Queen's Park Hotel, Port of Spain, Trinidad. The hotel opened on the 15th of January 1895 and it is likely that this cocktail emanated soon after. This luxury hotel was a fashionable stop for Hollywood types and well-heeled vacationers who spread the legend of its tall swizzled signature cocktail. The hotel was also famed for its Queen's Park Hotel Super Cocktail.

In this 1946, Trader Vics Book of Food and Drink, Victor Bergeron describes the Queen Park Swizzle as "the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today." A year later he also includes this swizzle in his Bartender's Guide By Trader Vic, adding, in the 1972 revised edition, "If you like to make and drink a real doozer of a rum drink that really is a rum drink, try this. It's from the Queen's Park Hotel in Trinidad."

QUEEN'S PARK SWIZZLE
½ large lime
Mint leaves
3 oz. 86-proof Demerara rum
2 dashes Angostura bitters
½ oz. simple syrup
Squeeze lime and drop shells with mint leaves into 14-oz glass; fill with shaved ice; add rest of ingredients and swizzle until glass frosts. Garnish with sprigs of mint.

Victor Bergeron, Bartender's Guide By Trader Vic, 1947

QUEEN'S PARK SWIZZLE
½ lime
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash rock candy syrup
1 ounce light Puerto Rican rum
1 ounce dark Jamaica rum
1 ounce 151-proof Demerara rum
Squeeze lime juice in 14-ounce chimney glass filled with shaved ice; save shell. Add remaining ingredients. Swizzle until uniform. Add spent lime shell, fresh mint, and a swizzle stick or stirrer

Victor Bergeron, Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, 1972

Nutrition:

One serving of Queen's Park Swizzle contains 183 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 1.5 standard drinks
• 20.97% alc./vol. (41.94° proof)
• 20.6 grams of pure alcohol