The sunny side of Dark and Stormy
SOUTHAMPTON, BERMUDA | As a golfer, I find there is much to commend Bermuda. The fishhook-shaped collection of islands that is populated by some 63,000 residents has more layouts per capita (six) than any place on earth.
One of those is found at the esteemed Mid Ocean Club outside Tucker’s Town. A Charles Blair Macdonald-Seth Raynor design, it boasts several well-imagined template holes and is regularly ranked among the top courses in the world.
Another is a public layout called Port Royal that Robert Trent Jones fashioned on the rugged shores of Southampton Parish. That track is so well regarded that this past weekend it once again hosted the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
Year-round weather that is well-suited for golf is an additional allure, with temperatures rarely falling below 60 degrees, even in winter. And what’s not to like about ever-present winds that make every round – and shot – interesting? Jaw-dropping vistas of the Atlantic, its waters hued with greens and blues, are a bonus.
A self-governing British Overseas Territory, Bermuda also happens to be home to one of the great post-round elixirs in the game: the Dark and Stormy.
On the surface, it seems to be a simple drink, with two primary elements, dark rum and ginger beer (and as far as purists are concerned, no squeeze of lime, thank you very much). But according to writer Eric Felten, who won a James Beard Foundation award in 2007 for his Wall Street Journal column, “How’s Your Drink?”, the Dark and Stormy is that rare adult beverage that depends totally on specific brands of ingredients. And in this case, those would be Gosling’s Black Seal rum, which has been sold in Bermuda since the early 19th century when the son of a London liquor merchant named William Gosling started importing and distributing spirits after being stranded here, and Barritt’s Bermuda Stone ginger beer, which William Barritt, the owner of a dry goods store in the capital city, Hamilton, started making in 1874.
Those complex yet comforting flavors make the beverage unique. So does the fact that both businesses are still led by members of the founding families. All these years later, their products combine to create a sublime and rather splendid buzz that has a way of enhancing the camaraderie of a congenial foursome while also accentuating the good shots a golfer hits during a round and eliminating any memories of missed putts, topped drives or duffed approaches.
They also work with the winds and cerulean waters to make any time here a truly Bermudian experience that is anything but dark and stormy.
John Steinbreder
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