Dark & Stormy à la the Aviary

One of my favorite cocktails is the Dark & Stormy – spicy with ginger, a little sweet, a little tart, and sparkling.  Typically, it’s made with ginger beer, which makes for a very easy recipe: ginger beer + rum + optional slice of lime.


Then there’s the Aviary’s version, which eschews the ginger beer in favor of homemade syrups, lime juice, and a carbonator.  As you might imagine, it’s awfully good.  Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found room for a carbonator in my little Chicago kitchen.


But you know who does have a carbonator?  My aunt and uncle.  Which means that my visit with them was a perfect opportunity to try my hand at a Dark & Stormy, Aviary-style.

As a starting point, I used a recipe from the cool all-things-Aviary tumblr, Aviary is Haunted, which provided the ingredients and proportions.  The Aviary uses a combination of ginger syrup and simple syrup, but since there are no further instructions for the syrups, I started experimenting.


My first attempt at ginger syrup was pretty good – a big knob of ginger, peeled and sliced, cooked with sugar and water.  And the resulting cocktail was tasty – though I wanted more ginger flavor, so decided to eliminate the simple syrup.  To make the ginger syrup spicier and more complex, I added black peppercorns to my next attempt.  (As an aside: this is undoubtedly the most fun food project I’ve undertaken in recent memory!)


The Aviary uses Goslings black rum, but I used Myers dark rum instead since that’s what we had on-hand – I’m sure it would be even better with the Goslings.  I also increased the proportion of rum just slightly.


Once the mixture is assembled, it’s quick work to carbonate it (we used the Penguin, which requires nothing more than pressing a couple times on its “beak”).


And then voilà!  A remarkably tasty Dark & Stormy, no ginger beer needed.  I think I need to get a carbonator after all…

Dark & Stormy
3.5 fl oz dark rum
1.5 fl oz ginger syrup (recipe follows)
1.5 fl oz freshly squeezed lime juice
7.5 fl oz water


Combine all ingredients in carafe and chill.  Carbonate.  Serves 2.




Ginger syrup
2 oz ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp black peppercorns (for a spicier syrup, crush them slightly)
1 cup water


Combine all ingredients in small saucepan.  Bring to a boil and stir if needed, to dissolve sugar.  Reduce heat and let simmer for 20-30 minutes, until syrup is slightly thickened. Strain and set aside to cool.