Queen’s Park Hotel Super Cocktail

Cocktails and mixed drinks
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Aside from being featured in Beachbum’s Potions of the Caribbean, the Queen’s Park Hotel Super Cocktail (QPHSC) seems to be a largely unknown cocktail, outside of those who like their drinks rummy, complex, and cold, and it just popped out of the blue. Twice.

Berry and Difford’s Guide both tie the drink back to the 1932 travel book If Crab No Walk: A Traveller in the West Indies by Owen Rutter. The hotel’s eponymous swizzle makes sense given the time-honored tradition of swizzled drinks in the Caribbean, but the QPHSC seems a little bit out of left field. From my digging, I could only ascertain that Berry dug up the QPHSC from Rutter’s book, featured it in Potions and it has slowly been popping up here and there within the cocktailing world. It seems to have been completely lost to time between 1932 and 2014.

I’ve gone looking for a copy or pdf of If Crab No Walk: A Traveller in the West Indies, to no avail. If anyone has access to this primary source or knows where I could get access that would be much appreciated. Aside from the aforementioned blurbs I’m hoping to learn more from the context surrounding Rutter’s mention of it in the book.

Why I am I so interested in this D-List cocktail? Because it is borderline heavenly, especially if you decide to split the base with equal parts Probitas/Veritas and Smith & Cross. Necessity is the mother of invention, or innovation in this case. For those unfamiliar:

1.5oz/45ml Rum (possibly originally Trinidadian rum, but .75oz/22ml each Probitas/Veritas and Smith & Cross if you’re funky)

.5oz/15ml fresh lime juice

.50z/15ml sweet vermouth

.5oz/15ml grenadine (see grenadine topic if you want to end up confused and/or thrilled)

2-3 dashes Angostura Bitters.

Shake n strain. Serve up.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shine a light on this poor, forgotten gem.

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Here’s what Rutter has to say about the drink on page 47 of If Crab No Walk:

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That recipe, wwhich contains a lot of wiggle room, is taken verbatim from “Trinidad Cocktails,” the little booklet published by the Queen’s Park Hotel and Hugh D. Marshall, its manager at the time, back in 1932. As for the rum, Marshall explains “The best rum in Trinidad today is Canning’s 5-year old Caroni Rum, which is guaranteed as having been kept in the wood in the Government Bond for 5 years. This Rum is supplied in screw-stoppered bottles, which does away with the necessity of a corkscrew.”

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Many thanks!

So it looks like “Trinidad Cocktails” and Rutter’s book were published around the same time and Hugh or one of his staff was a genius.

Also, kinda fun to see it calls for a Caroni rum. I can’t make any claim to know what that 5 year tasted like but some recipes today call for a Trinidadian rum like Angostura 1919 which lacks the distinct industrial tar Caroni is known for today. Scarlet Ibis is most likely more on the nose.

Maybe I fell ass backwards closer to authenticity by using Smith & Cross. Cool.

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:kissing_face_with_closed_eyes: I’ll take it. Hopefully that’s the phrase my exes use too.

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Here’s a one of a kind item Owen Rutter - Manuscript of If Crab No Walk, and Archive of Letters. West Indies | eBay UK

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In my neck of the three-story apartment buildings, it’s a complete endorsement :slight_smile:

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This is why I’m so thankful for @Splificator .

I’m not exactly keen on applying for another grant just to research this cocktail…

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