Funky pot-still Jamaican rum is brightened by lime and rounded by sugar, falling into that easy cadence of one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. Stretched long over crushed ice with an orange peel perfuming the rim, it drinks cold, bright and dangerously easy, made for beating the heat.
Garnish: Orange Peel
shaken · Highball · Crushed
add
Combine Jamaican rum, lime juice, and simple syrup in a shaker with ice.
shake
Shake briefly until chilled.
strain
Strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice.
top
Top with soda water or chilled water to taste for the 'four of weak' dilution (optional).
express
Express an orange peel over the surface and drop it in.
No single inventor is on record; the drink belongs broadly to Jamaica and the West Indies, where a rhyming proportion of sour, sweet, strong and weak served as the punch-maker's rule of thumb. Its earliest known printed recipe ran in the London magazine Fun in September 1878, measuring lemon, sugar, rum and water by the wine-glass in a 1:2:3:4 ratio. The IBA later adopted it as an official cocktail, at one point listing a more elaborate version with orange and pineapple juice, grenadine and Angostura before returning to the plain rum, lime and sugar formula. That simple scheme became the pattern behind a great many later rum punches.