Peacock Alley – Recipe from the ‘Old Waldorf Bar Guide’

Juice one-half Lime

One-third Maple Syrup

Two-thirds Charleston Rum

Ice, Shake well, strain

Charleston was the home to a minor rum industry during the time of British control over the colonies. Located in South Carolina, just to the north of Georgia and Florida it was located close enough to get a taste of Caribbean rum. Unfortunately, the British imposed yet another foolish tax limiting supply so the locals got all proactive and opened their own distillery. Annoyingly for the British then cut of molasses supply and the distilleries slowly went dry, until 2008 and Charleston is again home to a fledgling rum industry.

Now I’d expected to stumble over a drink with this name for a while, Peacock Alley is currently the name of one of the bars inside the Waldorf, a name which has been employed on and off by the hotel since 1897. The name comes from the lobby corridor inside the hotel, a corridor filled with the Glitterati of the late 1800’s dressed up in all their finery parading up and down through the lobby like, you guessed it, rich, powerful and well-dressed Peacocks.

This again is one of those drinks which needed a tweak. Unless 100 years ago they had limes the size of oranges, or this was a tiny thimbleful of cocktail this recipe has got ‘diabetes’ written all over it. I Embury’d it and went 8 parts rum, 2 parts lime juice and one-part maple syrup and it was delicious, a aged rum maple daiquiri. With good quality maple syrup, I could drink these all day.