Rum and spirit styles

Build Your Tiki Bar does not affiliate-link alcohol. The bottles below are what to say over the counter. If a clerk only has “gold rum” and “white rum,” you can still mix; the style names are how you get closer to the recipe pages on this site.

Two rum bottles cover a surprising amount of the catalog: one light (column-still, clean) and one with flavor (Jamaican or an aged blending rum). Add Demerara when you start mixing Navy Grogs. Add agricole when you want grass and a Three Dots night. Overproof is a float and a warning label, not a first bottle.

Ask for a Spanish-style light rum, not coconut rum. Daiquiris, Scorpion bowls, and a lot of punches want this. If the shelf says “silver” and the proof is around 80, you are in the right aisle.

An aged blending rum is the second half of a home Mai Tai on this site (paired with Jamaican). You want barrel notes, not vanilla soda. “Aged rum” on our ingredient list is this bottle, not a 21-year trophy.

Funk, banana, and a little nail polish in a good way. Say “Jamaican rum” and, if they ask, “something I’d put in a Mai Tai.” Pot-still marks (even a blend that includes them) are what the recipe is pointing at. This is the bottle that makes a home Mai Tai taste like the drink, not like rum and orgeat separately.

Guyanese, often darker, molasses and baked sugar. Navy Grog and a lot of “dark rum” recipes on this site will take it. If the store has nothing labeled Demerara, a decent dark mixing rum is the substitute. Tell yourself it is a substitute.

Rhum agricole is cane juice, not molasses, usually from Martinique or a neighbor. Grassy, dry, not dessert. Three Dots and a Dash and a few other recipes call for it. If the store does not carry agricole, do not fake it with spiced rum; pick a different drink.

Overproof is a float on a Zombie, not the mixing rum for four guests who drove. Navy-strength (the Painkiller bottle on our list) is a big pour; respect it on a patio. Ask by name if you know one; otherwise skip the float until you have mixed the drink without it.

Gin for Saturns and a few swizzles. Brandy for a Scorpion bowl. Campari for Jungle Birds; that one is a liquor-store aperitif, not a mixer we sell. Orange curaçao is the Mai Tai orange liqueur; Cointreau is a cousin, not a perfect swap, but it will mix if curaçao is missing.

Gear on this page is a shaker, a 1 oz / 2 oz jigger, and orgeat, the things that make the rum you already bought taste like a recipe. For syrups, see the DIY guide. For what you can mix from bottles on the shelf tonight, use the pantry matcher on Recipes.