Rum: Gate Of The Imagination

“Traveling is like flirting with life.
It's like saying, ‘I would stay and love you,

but I have to go; this is my station.’”
-Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

Traveling to the Caribbean always brings a few days of sheer pleasure into my mind. No amount of airport delays or missed connections will ever make me give up visiting the islands. As the trips approach their end, however, I'm always filled with sadness, since I know that a return home is imminent. Perhaps that is why I enjoy bringing back so many rum bottles with me: it is as if each bottle holds a memory, an image, a dream of living in the tropics, and every time I drink from that bottle, part of me is magically transported back.

I like drinking other spirits, Tequila for instance, but they never have the same effect on me: I rather be surrounded by sugarcane fields and palm trees than by blue agaves!

Following are some of my fondest memory from the Caribbean:

• Drinking "Corn and Oil" and eating fried flying fish in Barbados after a long walk on the beach. Corn 'n Oil is a cocktail made with Falernum (an alcoholic symple syrup with some spices) and rum, very tasty but also very sweet!
• Drinking "Dirty Bananas" at the Half Moon Villa in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Dirty Bananas are very similar to banana milkshakes but with rum and coffee and/or chocolate liqueur.
• Drinking a Lime Daiquiri made with Brinley Gold Lime Rum at the Brinley Bar and Shop in St. Kitts.
• Sipping Seventh Heaven or Bois Bande-infused rums at the St. Lucia Distillers visitor's center, a heavenly reward after spending time in Soufriere.

What are your most pleasant rum memories? Where does your mind wander when it needs a break?

Luis Ayala is an author and rum consultant with Rum Runner Press, Inc. To learn more about rum, please visit http://www.rumshop.net/ or http://www.rumuniversity.com/.