Let your mind wander toward Africa…..then go east a little bit to the island of Madagascar (home of the famous animated zoo animals), then think east again a few hundred miles to Mauritius. That’s where Pink Pigeon Rum comes from, named for the rare bird from that same island.

Local sugar cane and Madagascar vanilla beans are used to distill it, so the rum has a very pronounced vanilla scent and flavor. It’s somewhere between a white rum and a spiced rum as it’s not too mild or too spiced.

The bottle is pitch black with white and pink trim, so I was curious if the rum itself would be pink when I poured it. It’s not – it’s a light amber color, and when sipped straight, it’s got a good vanilla scent but doesn’t have the lingering sweetness I usually associate with rum. It has a strong, good bite at the finish.

I started working on ideas for a cocktail that would work with this special rum. The distiller says Pink Pigeon will work great in traditional rum drinks like daiquiris or mojitos, but I ended up creating an orange-and-cream cocktail instead:

Pink Pigeon Creamsicle (by Greg Mays)

• 1 1/2 oz Pink Pigeon rum
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1 oz triple sec (orange liqueur)
• 1/2 oz half-and-half
• Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass.
• Garnish with a 1/4 orange wheel.

Pink Pigeon is a great rum and makes some outstanding drinks. It’s about $35 a bottle and it has the flavor and smoothness of other spirits in that price range. It’s very tasty, not too sweet, and is a really unique.