Citrus Crush
► by Bartender Wayne Johnson of Cariba Restaurant & Bar
This cocktail by Bartender Wayne Johnson combines the high-end of local distillery Mount Gay rum with freshly muddled orange, lemon and lime juice. Add a splash of soda and you’ve got yourself an actually refreshing drink with no simple syrup or artificial sugars added.
— Photography: Kenneth Theysen
His cocktails are so popular at Cariba that former customers from when he worked at nearby Sandy Lane years ago come and get him to make them a drink, often this one or his signature Cariba cocktail with Foursquare spiced rum, apple vodka, mango juice and papaya juice. Johnson’s been working at the locally owned restaurant for more than four years, not including the three-year break he took to travel the world before coming back to owners Glen and Faye Bent’s labour of love.
The casual garden patios belie the high-quality of Chef Glen’s food, from seasonal grilled Caribbean lobster tail with pineapple rice and lemongrass sauce to grilled five-spice chicken breast with white yam purée, coconut milk-sweet corn sauce and just enough chilli pepper to make your lips tingle – and make you reach for another sip of this citrus-heavy drink.
Johnson likes that the cocktail incorporates locally made falernum, a low-alcohol liqueur made with lime, cloves, ginger and almonds, giving the drink a little more body from the spice and freshness of the sweet lime. In Barbados it’s popular with Sprite and sometimes Angostura bitters at Christmastime. “I grew up having it at home”, says Johnson.
He also likes that the drink goes well with everything. “It’s something you can drink with dinner. I think the citrus essential oils give it a nice flavour.”
Fresh and local? We’ll cheers to that.
Citrus Crush
Makes 1 cocktail
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Ingredients
1 ½ oz. XO Mount Gay rum
1 oz. falernum
3 slices orange, with peels and seeds
2 slices lemon, with peels and seeds
2 slices lime, with peels and seeds
3 oz. soda water
1 strip lime peel, to garnish
1 slice lemon, to garnish
1 maraschino cherry, optional, to garnish
Instructions
Chill a Martini glass with ice.
Muddle together the rum, falernum and fruit in a cocktail shaker.
Add the ice from the Martini glass and shake the cocktail.
Stir in the soda water.
Strain the cocktail into the chilled glass with fresh ice.
Garnish with a twist of lime peel, a slice of lemon and a cherry on a skewer.
BARTENDER’S TIPS
Johnson recommends Cockspur Old Time Recipe Falernum, which is made on Barbados, but you can use any brand.
If you want a sweeter drink, add a little simple syrup or, better yet, a little more falernum. You can also buy non-alcoholic falernum syrup for a lower alcohol drink.
The Martini isn’t called a “Citrus Crush” for nothing. When muddling, you want to extract as much juice from the fruit as possible before straining out the seeds and peels.
Don’t swap out the club soda for tonic water. “The quinine will give it a different taste.”
Add the soda water after shaking the drink so the bubbles stay vibrant. “The soda brings it alive.”
