When I hear Anise Global Gastrobar is hosting an Afrohead Rum dinner at its "new private event space," I figure the room is secretly housed somewhere inside the swanky downtown Tampa hangout. Wrong.
On Tuesday night, shortly before the $100 collaborative dinner pairing is about to begin, the hostess stationed at the front of the restaurant-bar hands my dining mate and I off to her colleague, who whisks us away to the event space's low-key entrance. We walk through its propped-open door off Zack Street (right around the corner from Anise), then make a right and some lefts into a small, intimate area with tables that seat four and a handsome, glowing bar.
We're in for an evening of funky glassware and interesting drink interpretations, Anise beverage director Ryan Brown tells us while whipping up a simple, tropical beverage to hold us over 'til dinner. Based on previous events and cocktail competitions I've attended, I know Brown and the rest of the crew are big on presentation, so this should be good. And it is.
Throughout the elegant meal, we're treated to four globally influenced dishes from the gastrobar's chef, Mary Paff, all matched with Brown's libations that incorporate Afrohead Briland 07 and 15 XO expressions.
According to Aussie rum savant Toby Tyler, who takes his juice either neat or on the rocks in the Bahamas, he blended these two premium aged dark spirits for selfish reasons.
"I was drinking Diplimaticos, El Dorados, and they're all great rums, but just too sweet for me," says Tyler, who's been making his Trinidad rum for 10 years. "That's all it was for me. I want to make this neat and this neat, so I can drink how I want to drink.
"People ask, 'How do you know what you're making?' I know what I like."
Though the master blender is used to neat drinks, he's starting to see what bartenders like Brown can do with Afrohead in specialty cocktails. Fun sippers such as Mai Tais and mojitos are showcasing the 7-year-old rum, he says, while the 15 year old is standing in for brown spirits (think whiskey, bourbon or cognac) found in a number of old-school cocktails — Sidecars and Old Fashioneds among them.
"They're substituting great brown spirits, so it's really exciting to see rum coming up the stand on the back bar like whiskies... To see some of these drier rums being made now coming to the forefront in the realm of spirits, it's just been great," he says.
The amuse bouche's boozy, fruity accompaniment, Don't Forget the Pineapple, highlights Afrohead 7 year, Bison Grass Vodka, sage syrup and lemon tonic. In the style of a scorpion bowl, it's a refreshing and classic tiki cocktail combo served with delicious callaloo samosa. Paff, who researched Trinidadian cuisine in preparation for this first dinner of the season, says the island does a ton with callaloo soup. The samosa — stuffed with Swiss chard, spinach, coconut milk and lots of onions and served atop tamarind sauce with cilantro aioli — is her take on that.
Next is the first course of tasty smoked tuna tacos (mango relish, ginger aioli, pickled onion) served with A Dose of Refreshment, which has a mini test tube bottle wedged into its chunks of ice. What's in the bottle? I wonder, alongside everyone else. Spearmint tea limoncello. We abide by Brown's instructions, "Pop the cork open and dose yourself accordingly." The limoncello blends seamlessly with the cocktail's 7 year, house-made pineapple shrub and yuzu.
Savory braised oxtail (pineapple chow chow, curried chickpeas, fried sweet plantains) and the sweet Out For a Smoke (7 year, smoked fig liqueur, Cappelletti, Angostura) — more of a stirred cocktail than the previous offerings — follow, as does the final course: pistachio baklava with a thyme-red currant reduction and Old and a Bit Nutty, featuring organic cacao nib-infused Afrohead 15 year, pistachio orgeat syrup, old vine zinfandel and Amaro Zucca.
These two arrive in nifty three-tiered glassware, with coffee beans on top, the drink in the middle and baklava on the bottom. The dessert, Paff's play on a popular pinwheel pastry in Trinidad fused with some Peruvian influence from toasted coconut, is a terrific taste to end with. And the cocktail, conveying notes of chocolate, nut and berry, is a sweet treat all its own.
"It's kind of a prototype, so we'll introduce you guys to that tonight," Brown says of the presentation.
To get started, we're told to put our right hand on the top, our left hand on the center and lift both glasses up at the same time, then set them down side by side. We smell the beans (chewing on one or two while you drink is also recommended), take a sip and dig in.
After making the 15 year back in 2006, Tyler says he told his then-wife, "I think I got it wrong."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I think I got the rum wrong. People are trying it, and they don't like it."
"Do you like it?"
"Yeah."
She raised her voice, he recalls, and said, "Do you love it?"
"Yeah, I do actually."
"Stick with it."
Afrohead, which debuted to the South Florida market in January, launched throughout the state around early spring, and the spirits can now be found locally in stores like Winn-Dixie and Total Wine.
"There's some really cool things being done with it," Tyler says. "I like [bartenders] who're always thinking about it. What they're doing has opened up my eyes more."
