Columbia

Almost certainly. Most raspberry liqueurs run 15 to 20 percent sugar and a heavy hand turns a sour into a cordial. Keep it under 10 ml against 60 ml of rum, and taste before you strain. Lemon can rescue a little of it, not a lot.

It would, and you would have a different drink. Lime's sharper acid pushes the rum forward and makes the raspberry read as candy. Lemon is rounder and lets the fruit sit in the middle where it belongs. Stick with lemon the first time.

Six or seven of them, muddled, will do it, but strain twice or you will be chewing seeds. Fresh fruit brings aroma and no sugar, so add a few milliliters of syrup to replace what the liqueur was doing. The color comes out brighter and fades faster.

Habit, mostly, and it does no harm if it is a real maraschino cherry rather than the fluorescent kind. A lemon twist is the better choice if you want the citrus to stay in the nose. Skip the cherry entirely and nothing is lost.

A classic Columbia calls for 60 ml (2 oz) White rum, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Raspberry liqueur, 22 ml (0.75 oz) Fresh lemon juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Columbia is roughly 28% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.

A Columbia is shaken — the rule of thumb is to shake anything with citrus juice. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.