To Serve Man
Rum

Queen's Park Swizzle

Glass
Collins

Trinidadian mint-and-Demerara swizzle crowned with bitters that bleed down through the crushed ice.

rum swizzle caribbean demerara mint lime classic
Scale
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Ingredients

  • fresh mint leaves (8)
  • demerara sugar syrup (0.5 oz)
  • fresh lime juice (0.75 oz)
  • aged Demerara rum (2 oz)
  • crushed ice (1 cup)
  • Angostura bitters (6 dashes)
  • mint bouquet (1)
  • lime wheel (1)

Instructions

  1. In a tall collins glass muddle fresh mint leaves gently with demerara sugar syrup and fresh lime juice.
  2. Add aged Demerara rum and fill the glass with crushed ice.
  3. Swizzle with a swizzle stick (or bar spoon) until the glass frosts.
  4. Top with more crushed ice to mound above the rim.
  5. Dash Angostura bitters generously over the top so they bleed down through the ice.
  6. Garnish with a mint bouquet and a lime wheel.

Sources

  1. Bergeron, Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink (1946) and Bartender's Guide, by Trader Vic (1947), Queen's Park Swizzle entries, earliest printed-American versions of the Trinidadian original; Vic credits Queen's Park Hotel, Port of Spain. ↩
  2. "Queen's Park Swizzle." Difford's Guide. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/2740/queens-park-swizzle (accessed 2026-05-03), modern published spec with the Queen's Park Hotel attribution (the hotel opened January 15, 1895; the drink likely emerged shortly thereafter); source aligned with this file's measurement bill. ↩
  3. Berry, Potions of the Caribbean (2014), swizzle / Trinidad chapters, documents the swizzle as a Trinidadian-Caribbean form predating the Queen's Park Hotel codification, with the bois-lélé stick technique and the bitters-bleed-through-ice signature. ↩