Rum Runner: 3 Easy Recipes for the Fruity Tiki Cocktail

1. Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake well and strain into a hurricane glass over fresh ice.
3. Garnish with fruit!

Optional: Pour the ingredients into a blender with about 3/4 cup of ice and blend until smooth.

A Rum Runner Heavy on the OJ

Whether or not you enjoy this Rum Runner recipe more is going to depend on your taste for orange juice. That is the dominant flavor of this drink as it outweighs all of the other ingredients combined.

You might think of this as a rum take on the Tequila Sunrise.

It is a nice drink, though. The rum, blackberry brandy, and banana liqueur nicely complement the fresh orange, and their sweetness offsets the tart citrus.

I also enjoy this recipe because it's super easy and requires far fewer ingredients. Try it in the blender as well; it makes a fantastic frozen drink!

To make this drink, combine 1 1/2 ounces rum with 1/2 ounce each blackberry brandy and crème de banana with 3 ounces orange juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Add a dash of falernum, shake, and strain into a chilled hurricane glass.

Tip: If you cannot find falernum - an almond, ginger, lime, and spiced sugar syrup - that is used in many rum cocktails, use grenadine instead.

A Rum Runner with Classic Style

If you do not own a copy of Dale DeGroff's The Craft of the Cocktail, you are missing out on great recipes like this Rum Runner. It is completely different than all others, but that's what makes it so great!

You will find that DeGroff's recipe is decidedly lighter because it skips the heaviness of orange juice and opts for refreshing pineapple instead. It also features two rums - of which I recommend choosing wisely and use the 'good stuff' - and brings in that rich texture of an egg white.

All of these elements give DeGroff's Rum Runner a classic style that is untouched in most modern renditions of this cocktail. Whip this version up when you want to impress your guests.

To make this drink, muddle a piece of lime in the bottom of a cocktail shaker, so it is lightly bruised.

 Add 1 ounce each light and medium rums, pineapple juice, and simple syrup as well as 1/2 ounce lime juice and an egg white. Shake vigorously (more than usual to properly mix the egg) and strain into a tall glass with ice. Garnish with tropical fruit.

How Strong Are the Rum Runner Cocktails?

Rum-filled tiki cocktails are not known to be the lightest drinks though they will be as strong as you want to make them. If you pour stronger rum or use less juice, you will naturally get a stronger drink.

To make the math simple, let's assume we pour each of these Rum Runner recipes with only 80-proof rums, a 60-proof banana liqueur, and a 50-proof blackberry liqueur. This is how they weigh in on alcohol content:

• Rum Runner (first listed): 21% ABV (42 proof)
• Rum Runner (heavy on the OJ): 14% ABV (28 proof)
• Rum Runner (Dale DeGroff): 14% ABV (28 proof)

What's the difference? Go back and look, the first recipe uses an equal amount of everything and includes two rums with two liqueurs. The juices in the other recipes make up most of the volume and bring the drinks' potency down significantly.