Kamehameha Rum Punch

The K-Rum Punch, hailing from Hawaii circa 1960, was taken from drinks blog A Mountain of Crushed Ice, and one would do well to prepare at least a hillock of said ice to make a batch of four. I don't usually bother with fiddly drinks like this, but it was a hot Friday evening, and my friend J had been kind enough to bring us a bottle of rum to play with. And so...

Kamehameha Rum Punch

30ml (1oz) light rum

60ml (2oz) unsweetened pineapple juice

15ml (0.5oz) lemon juice

1tsp blackberry brandy

1tsp grenadine

1tsp sugar syrup

30ml (1oz) dark rum

Shake everything but the dark rum with ice and strain into a tall glass filled with crushed ice. Float dark rum on top and garnish with a pineapple chunk speared to a cherry.

This was great. I don't tend to go nuts for fruity drinks, but this one went down just right. The rum float was a funny thing: I had only golden rum, rather than properly dark stuff, so perhaps that explained why it wasn't floating as well as it might have. But it definitely gave the cocktail a nicely layered look (see right) and the crushed ice kept things very cold all the way down. Next time I'm going to procure some cocktail umbrellas and the like.