The rabbit, consulting his gold leaf pocket watch, was running late for the Hatter’s tea party. It seemed appropriate to toast the Late for Tea box with another tea infused Jabberwock cocktail variation, this time using the exotic spices of Chai. But for the base spirit we turn to rum rather than gin, and specifically, Bacardi rum, whose symbol is a fruit bat. From the company’s history we learn that in 1862, “Don Facundo Bacardí Massó bought a small distillery in Santiago de Cuba and started his famous company. His wife, Doña Amalia, noticed a colony of fruit bats hanging in the rafters of the distillery. She recognized their importance to the Spanish and Cuban Taíno Indians as symbols of good health, family unity, and good fortune.” The bat became the symbol of their new company and “soon locals began to ask for ‘el ron del murcielago’ – the rum of the bat.”

How does this remotely tie into the tea party? How can we forget the brilliant recitations of the Mad Hatter during that maddening party? Perhaps his most inspired oration was this one:

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you’re at!

Up above the world you fly,

Like a teatray in the sky.

Carroll scholars point out that the poem was an inside joke referencing Professor Bartholomew Price (whose nickname was “The Bat”), a Don at Oxford College and one of Carroll’s former teachers, who was well known and loved by Alice Liddell’s family. Clearly we must use Bacardi rum to honor The Bat. It would be mad not to. The cocktail is also sweetened with honey, a perfect compliment to tea, and enhanced with Blackstrap Bitters, with flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, sassafras and sarsaparilla that go perfectly with rum and chai spice. Cheers!

Late for Tea

1 oz chai infused Bacardi 8 rum

1 oz Amontillado sherry

1 oz Caperitif

¾ oz honey syrup

2 dashes Bittercube Blackstrap Bitters

Stir ingredients together with ice and strain into a favorite teacup. Garnish with a lemon peel.

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