Blending these two brothers from Jamaica and Trinidad seems both obvious and logical.
Compañero Jamaica-Panama Elixir Extra has taken everything good from the two companions with it, and the result is a bomb of chocolate and juicy orange at a sensible 47% ABV. You get a beautiful pale golden colour with medium viscosity and a nose full of tropical fruit, cacao, orange blossom, milk chocolate and lightly charred oak. What more could you want? The palate is soft, sweet and well balanced with juicy oranges, dark chocolate and a small hint of mint, delivering a long, comfortable finish with crème brûlée and dates in the background. It is impossible not to feel transported to a Central American afternoon in the sunshine, a light breeze, palm fronds waving overhead. Then I look out of the window and remember I am sitting in a lightly snow-covered southern Jutland, temperature just below freezing, Christmas around the corner. So now I am taking the bottle out to the kitchen to make my version of a classic piece of French Christmas confectionery, a Bûche de Noël, originally a baked cocoa roulade with cream, shaped like a log. I plan to use marzipan, soft nougat, raisins, almonds, chocolate and a good measure of Compañero Jamaica-Panama Elixir Extra.
You will need:
1/2 kg good marzipan
150 g soft nougat
1/2 dl chopped almonds
1 dl sultana raisins
4 cl
Compañero Jamaica-Panama Elixir Extra
100 g good chocolate and a small knob of butter
A little icing sugar for decoration.
• Put the almonds, raisins and rum in an airtight container and leave them to steep for a couple of days.
• Roll the marzipan flat, prick a few holes with a fork and spread slices of soft nougat over it.
• Take your almond and raisin mixture and distribute it evenly. Remember to get all the rum in there too.
• Roll the whole thing into a roulade, wrap it in cling film and put it back in the fridge for another couple of days.
• Chop the chocolate and melt it over a water bath with a little butter.
• Take out the roulade and trim the ends clean. Use the offcuts to make a couple of stumps on the log.
• Coat it in a thick layer of chocolate, let it cool, then dust with icing sugar for the sake of Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
