One doesn't ordinarily think of an evening at Alain Ducasse at Essex House winding down to a trolley filled with humble rums. André Campeyre, Ducasse's slightly unnerving sommelier, who knows everything in liquor's vast domain, wheels his rums out like a man about to spring a surprise. And indeed he is. You've probably already guessed that these aren't the usual Captain Morgan's nor even the doughty Pusser's that for 230 years was the official daily drink of the British Royal Navy. No: These aren't limpid rotguts you mix with Coke or toss into daiquiris. Campeyre has assembled something like a who's-who of rum's queenly aristocrats. "They are," he says, "the least known, the most mysterious of liquors."
