Richard Blais Wants You To Savor The Summer…And Sip Mount Gay Rum – Forbes

Before the summer’s over, Richard Blais wants you to stop and savor the summer. And maybe sip some great rum while cooking some great food.

This Top Chef and acclaimed restaurateur kicked off his partnership with Mount Gay Rum and Cocktail Courrier to curate a limited edition, $112 tasting kit. The “Mount Gay Rum Summer Taste Essentials” kit invites people to savor the summer before it’s over. The kit itself has proved so popular

“I am extremely excited to join Mount Gay Rum in encouraging consumers to explore and savor the flavors of summer and celebrate moments worth taking time for,” says Blais, who was approached by the rum brand to partner up. “I am excited to be a part of the brand’s new digital-led, brand platform ‘Make Time for Taste’ to showcase all the ways to enjoy elevated summer moments.”

Both the brand and Blais himself “put taste at the forefront,” he says, and he was especially enthused to create the kit with the brand, collaborating with ways to experiment with rum and taste tor a content series, social content and a tangible cocktail kit for “fans and cocktail enthusiasts to enjoy new ways of experiencing and savoring rum.”

The kit itself, besides the Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum, contains glasses, pineapple syrup (equal parts pineapple chunks and simple syrup, puréed, then strained), Angostura bitters, two Williams Sonoma seasonings (This is Everything and All Things Meat), two glasses, dried pineapples and lemons – basically everything you need to pair barbecue with rum.

What Blais says he hoped the kit would accomplish is prove rum’s versatility in pairing. “The goal of this kit and our partnership is to dispel common misconceptions around rum and to highlight all the ways in which cocktail enthusiasts can enjoy the spotlight,” Blais says. “I wanted consumers to experience and discover how Mount Gay Rum develops its unique taste through a flavorful cocktail recipe – Good Old Pine – and grill pairings.”

Good Old Pine, the cocktail Blais developed, consists of rum, pineapple syrup and aromatic bitters. A twist on the old fashioned, the exact recipe can be found on Cocktail Courier’s website, and it pairs well with grilled meats and vegetables. “When I created this kit, one of my biggest inspirations was to squash a common misconception people have about rum,” Blais says. “People think rum only works well with sweet flavors, but it doesn’t have to be paired with something fruity. A rum like Mount Gay is so much more complex, especially with its barrel aging, so you can think of rum in the same way you think of whisky or bourbon.”

Blais says he also wants consumers and cocktail enthusiasts to know how refreshing cocktails can pair with summer grilling. “With this kit, I wanted to show off how pairing refreshing cocktails with savory summer grilling staples is the perfect way to discover new flavor combinations,” he says.

With National Rum Day coming up on August 16, Blais has a perfect pairing all planned out. “To celebrate, I plan on making (my) Mount Gay Black Barrel Blaised Ribs that perfectly complements rum cocktails like my Ember and Rum Manhattant,” he says. “It’s delicious. When I blend the recipe’s piquant spices with a healthy pour of Mount Gay Black Barrel to marinate lamb or pork ribs, the result is out of this world and gloriously messy.”

“I also plan to enjoy a neat pour of Black Barrel so I can really experience the flavors of the rum,” he says. “Rum, especially Mount Gay, is an exciting spirit to me as it is a flavor first.”

Favorite