Bitters are trans-formative…

A dash or two added to any tropical cocktail that doesn’t normally call for bitters can be a big improvement. 

Amargo Chuncho is a go too bitters for me but as evidenced below experimenting with bitters made from related ingredients can yield excellent results.

D. Randy West

I had a couple of really good accounts in St. Barts & St, Maarten but it also gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time visiting with my traveling, sailing and surfing companion of many years D. Randy West. He was there quite a lot on the various sailboats he captianed and it was his home base for a number of years. 

Randy was blessed with personality and enthusiasm beyond the norm and was a true “Son of the Beach” (One of a number of Alums from Daytona Beach in the 70’s and 80’s that made their way to the Caribbean).  No one better to be in or on the water with.  He taught me to sail and helped me become a better surfer.  In return I taught him to scuba dive and helped him with some of finer points of windsurfing when he took up the sport. 

He was a great story teller and could spin yarns in a number of different accents.  In early 1981 we opted to spending the winter in the Eastern Caribbean and started the trip off in St. Thomas.  We surfed, dove and sailed for a week or so with champion swimmer Pam Lowenhaupt and her boyfiend. 

I can distinctly remember us hitch hiking on Skyline Drive to Hull Bay to catcha a swell.  We ended up in the back of a truck with 3 Rastafarians who were for the most part genial.  Of course, there was pot being passed about and the subject got around to religion.  One of the Rastas told us we were “whodevils” and that Jah proclaimed death to all the oppressors!  Randy in his best West Indian brogue came back with “I ain’t no whodevil… Jah say death to all the oppressors black and white”!  Lord almighty that broke the ice.

Randy was most famous for and known around the world as the Godfather of Caribbean Multihull Sailing. He was closely associated with Catamarans of Peter Spronk and especially Ppalu which he actually helped launch in the late 70s shortly after graduating from college.  It was always his favorite and he actually bought Ppalu 4 or 5 years ago but that is another story.

He also authored 2 very entetaining books.  One of them was ” A Sunny Place for Shady Characters: Tales from St. Barth’s “Le Select” Bar “.  This was the bar I had my first “Ti Punch” in 1984.  It was my first time on ST. B on an excursion with Randy on one of the Spronk Cats he ran doing “Pony Rides” with tourists from St. Maarten when he first settled into the region.  

Randy appreciated good food and drink and took to all the local customs associated with such.  However there was a time when Randy gave up hard liquor and drank nothing but champagne for something like 2 years.  Mostly Moet which is a venerable maker that you could get for $12 a bottle if you knew the right places to shop. 

Durring those 2 years I’d travel to St. Bart or St. Maarten and show up at Le Select or the Sailors Bar in Phillibsburg after a day of working my accounts to find Randy holding court drinking Champagne. It was always nothing but good times with Randy. 

After moving to Colorado I had only been in touch with Randy a few times but would look him up on the intenet.  A while back I woke up in the middle of the night and I just got to thinking I wonder what Randy is up to so I did a google searcg.   It was a very depressing search as I was surprised to learn that he had passed away a couple of years ago. Never thought he would beat me to the grave as he always seemed bigger than life itself.  An incredible character and fantastic friend, I am certain there are many that miss him as I do!

A Bottle of “Rhum” and a Lime

Jimmy Buffet spent a lot of time in St. Barts  one of the French Islands of note in the Leeward Islands (he owned a home there).  I can’t help but think that when he wrote Banana Republics, he was talking about the Le Select Bar and the cocktail “Ti’ Punch”  as it is the classic drink of the French West Indies and litterally as described “A Bottle of Rhum and a Lime” (rather than in bars of the Latin Countries as the song implies).

It is a simple cocktail made with a teaspoon or less of a sugar syrup called Petit Canne (BG Reynolds Demerara works fine), a quarter sized slice of lime.  It’s meant to be made with Rhum Agricole made from sugar cane juice rather than molases.  It is sensational with La Favorite Rhum Agricole Blanc which has a lot of funk in the nose… It is called a Grande Punch when using an Aged Agricole Rhum…  Adding 2-3 drops of lime bitters will even make it better. Also if you don’t have Agricole Rhum handy any aged Rum will make a fine Grande Punch.  

It’s also fantastic with my friend Robert Dawson’s, Kohana Agricole Rhum from the Manulele Distillery on Oahu.  If you are going to Hawaii anytime soon make sure you include a visit to this incredible distillery… Robert is a true artisan and doing great things in HI.

 If you are a Rum drinker this is a humdinger!

If you can’t find Toadstool Pennellen Amaro No. 2 try Gran Classico I bet it is pretty good and and plan to give it a spin tonight!