Añejo Highball

It decides the drink. Ginger ale is sweetened water with flavoring and will leave this tasting like flat punch. A sharp ginger beer supplies the heat and the dryness the curaçao and rum are built around. Look for one with real ginger high in the ingredients.

A Cuban-style aged rum: light-bodied, column-distilled, three to five years old. Something from Puerto Rico, Guatemala or the Dominican Republic sits right. A heavy Jamaican rum fights the ginger instead of riding it, and a dark navy blend turns the whole thing molasses-heavy.

Curaçao goes in by the bar spoon, so the orange needs reinforcing from outside the glass; the lime keeps the nose from going candied. Drop the orange and the drink smells like a Dark 'n' Stormy. Drop the lime and it smells like marmalade.

Fill the glass with ice before anything else, pour the spirits and juice over it, then add the ginger beer last and do not stir. Lifting the ice once with a bar spoon is enough to mix it. Every extra stir costs you carbonation.

A classic Añejo Highball calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Aged rum, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Triple sec / Cointreau, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Fresh lime juice, 2 dashes Angostura Angostura bitters, 90 ml (3 oz) Ginger beer. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Añejo Highball is roughly 13% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it about as strong as a glass of wine.

An Añejo Highball is built directly in the glass over ice — no shaker required. Add the ingredients in order and give it a brief, gentle stir.