Savoy’s Bolo – a cocktail recipe to throw you for a loop

Flipping through the Savoy Cocktail Book can be rewarding. Sometimes you find recipes for cocktails that you’ve heard of, sometimes you find unheard of (but interesting) recipes, and sometimes you find recipes that you had marked during an earlier browsing and never gotten back to. This was the case with the Bolo. It’s an interesting sounding recipe, calling for Rum and citrus, and fairly simple for the amateur mixologist to shake up for personal consumption or for friends at an Oscar party. The original Savoy recipe includes orange juice and gives you a choice between lemon and lime juice. Add some sugar (or substitute simple syrup) to offset the sour, and finish it with some light rum.

The Savoy can be rather vague on quantities. In the case of the Bolo it calls for “1/2 Wineglass Bacardi Rum,” which could be anything up to 3 ounces. That seemed a little much, so it’s been rounded down to a healthy 2 ounces. The original recipe uses freshly squeezed juices, and they will make a difference in the quality of the cocktail. So pick up some fresh citrus this afternoon and be prepared to watch the Oscars this evening.

Bolo

Juice of ½ Lime or ¼ Lemon (1/2 oz)

Juice of ¼ Orange

1 teaspoon Sugar (fine) or Simple Syrup

2 oz Light Rum

Add ingredients to a shaker 2/3 full of ice. Shake briskly until frost begins to form on the shaker (well, that’s the ideal). Strain into a pre-chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a citrus wheel or a slice of strawberry. Enjoy!