Airmail
Aged rum, lime and honey, shaken and topped with Champagne. A 1930s Bacardi-era drink — a rum French 75 with honey in place of sugar, and better for it.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Chill a coupe or flute.
Add the rum, lime juice and honey syrup to a shaker, fill with ice, and shake hard for 10 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Top with cold Champagne and garnish with a lime wheel, or nothing.
A thoughtful finish
- Honey syrup rather than raw honey; cold honey seizes in the shaker.
- A rum with a little age — two to five years — gives the drink body under the wine; a white rum makes it thin.
- Top with the wine gently and do not stir; it is a sparkling drink and wants its bubbles.
Common mistakes
- Simple syrup in place of honey. The honey is the drink's character.
- A sweet sparkling wine on top of the honey. Brut only.
- Shaking the Champagne.
A few good questions.
What is an Airmail?
Rum, lime, honey and Champagne — a rum sour topped with sparkling wine, from the 1930s.
Why the name?
For the airmail service, new and exciting in the 1930s; early serves stuck a stamp on the glass.
How is it different from a French 75?
Rum and honey instead of gin and sugar, and lime instead of lemon. The structure is identical.
How is it related to the Old Cuban?
Audrey Saunders's Old Cuban of 2001 is an Airmail with mint and bitters and simple syrup; the Airmail is its ancestor.
Variations
- French 75 — Gin, lemon, sugar and Champagne.
- Old Cuban — Aged rum, lime, mint, bitters and Champagne.
- Bee's Knees — Gin, lemon and honey.
- Daiquiri — Rum, lime and sugar.
Where it comes from
c. 1930s · Cuba and the United States
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
The Airmail appears in a Bacardi promotional booklet of the early 1930s and in Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts of 1949, which prints it as rum, lime, honey and Champagne and notes the stamp on the glass — the name is from the airmail service that was new and glamorous in the 1920s and 1930s, and early versions were served with a postage stamp stuck to the glass. Nobody is credited. It fell out of use for decades and came back with the rum revival, and it is now a standard of the sparkling-sour family alongside the French 75 and the Old Cuban, which it clearly inspired.
Sources
- Esquire, Handbook for Hosts, 1949 (book)
- Bacardi, promotional recipe booklet, 1930 (archive)
- David Wondrich, Imbibe!, 2015 (book)
Strength. About 1.48 US standard drinks at an estimated 14.9% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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