Duck and rum

OK, this sounds like THE most unlikely pairing but bear with, as they say …

For a start the occasion was a spirits and cocktail lunch hosted by The Whisky Exchange where we were drinking their spirits of the year which included Four Square’s sumptuously rich Doorley’s 14 year old rum from Barbados. The kind of drink, you’d think, that you’d pair with chocolate or a dessert like the Dulce de Leche fondant pudding they were also serving at Sucre (which is where the lunch took place)

But TWE’s Dawn Davies who was sitting next to me reckoned it went really well with the duck and because she used to be a somm I had to try the two. And indeed it did, not least because it was accompanied by two sweet elements, chestnuts and roast pumpkin. You’d need to be a bit measured about it as it’s a hefty 48% but it wears its alcohol lightly

It made me think that if it dark rum worked with that dish it would also go brilliantly with a glazed Christmas ham. Worth a try anyway!

See also:

9 fine wine matches for duck

The best pairings for rum and rum-based cocktails

I attended the lunch as a guest of The Whisky Exchange.

Bread pudding with Mount Gay XO Rum

As I remarked last week it’s been rum with practically everything since we’ve been in Barbados - or if not rum, Banks beer - so I nearly went for a rare wine pairing - Provencal rosé with tuna poke - as my match of the week.

Rosé seems to be the most popular wine on the island by a long chalk - understandable given the climate. We also had it at the Nikki Beach with sushi which worked equally well.

But it’s still cold back home in the UK so I thought you’d benefit more from a rum pairing you might not have thought of: XO rum and bread pudding.

The dessert, which was served at one of Speightstown’s newer restaurants Hugo’s was a particularly good version of this classic Bajan dish - a wonderfully rich but light bread pudding with Mount Gay rum and condensed milk sauce (as good as it sounds) and rum and raisin ice-cream - intense enough to take a serious spirit in its stride.

Although I’m a fan of Mount Gay which is made in Barbados - we’ve been using it all the time in our rum punches - I hadn’t tried the Extra Old bottling before and it’s really impressive. You can buy it for £33 at the time of writing on Amazon.

See also The best pairings for rum and rum-based cocktails

I ate at Hugo’s as a guest of the restaurant

Cheese and cassava croquettes and rum punch

This week's match of the week is a bit random, admittedly, because everything goes with rum punch in Barbados but I wanted to single out these delicious croquettes we bought in the Holders Hill farmer's market.

Oddly they were made by a smallholder called Domi’s Delights who specialises in Peruvian cuisine so maybe they were not authentically Bajan but Peruvian-inspired.

In any case they were first-rate - light and fluffy with a deliciously molten cheesy centre (not the most flattering pic, I admit so you’ll have to take my word for it)

The rum punch was a pre-mix from a bar called St Maria’s which sounds like a bit of a cop-out but for some reason there’s a shortage of the tiny fragrant local limes and from past experience we knew it was as good as almost any we could make from scratch. Last year we tried to find the bar where they made it but it had closed so I guess they find it more profitable to bottle it and sell it to the large ex-pat community here.

It cost 67Bds$ or £26 for 1.75 litres which sounds a lot but is equivalent to 2 1/2 standard bottles. Or around 15 individual rum punches. (Booze is cheaper than food on the island!)

It also goes with practically any kind of snack you want to nibble with it from a flying fish cutter - as you'll see from last year - to a bag of plantain crisps. Followed by a the excellent local Banks beer.

Steak with an Old Fashioned

Red wine is such an established go to with steak that it’s hard to consider anything else as a pairing but it struck me this week after a few days tasting rum with Philippines producer Don Papa (yes, it’s a hard life … ) that dark rum might also be an interesting match.

Don Papa is a rich dark small batch rum that I thought would go well with the caramelised surface of a grilled steak - and so it proved when we tried it at Elbert’s Steak Room in Makati - the upmarket CBD of Manila. It was especially good on the rocks but I reckon an even better pairing would be an Old Fashioned cocktail made with the same 7 year old rum.

Would you actually order it at a steak restaurant though? I don’t see why not if it’s a drink you enjoy. If you didn’t feel like having it during a meal it would also be good with a bar snack of a couple of sliders, a burger or a steak sandwich

*If you want to run up the cocktail yourself the Don Papa team call it the Don Fashioned and it’s 50ml (2 shots) of Don Papa, 1/2 a bar spoon or teaspoon of agave syrup and 2 dashes of Angostura bitters. Pour the ingredients into a tumbler filled with ice, stir and garnish with an orange twist - and a maraschino cherry, if you fancy it though the version I tried was excellent without one.

My 5 top wine and steak pairing tips

I visited the Philippines as a guest of Don Papa rum.