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If Latin the staples Mojito and Caipirinha are two combatants vying for the hearts and souls of hot-weather cocktail drinkers, tangerine is the mediator where they can finally come together at last. Tangerine is like Jimmy Carter in cocktail form.

The Mirage’s Rhumbar serves up the Spanish Trampoline, a drink that The Food Network saw fit to crown its top cocktail in 2005. Tobin Ellis, who created the cocktail menu at Rhumbar, is behind this libation that brings in the Caipirinha’s cachaca with the Mojito’s mint and makes them play nice together.

Tangerines are muddled with mint, to which lime, cane sugar and Sagatiba cachaca are added over ice. Garnish with a purple flower, and you’ve got a sexy senorita in a glass, without all that Latin temper and overbearing brother that gets mad when you look at it that way.

“The tangerine gives it a bit of a bite,” bartender Jason Hughes said.

Indeed, the tangerine leaps out of the glass to give the Spanish Trampoline a really bright profile. The mint comes up very subtly at the very end of the drink, and together, they neutralize the kind of musty taste that cachaca has. What you’re left with is a peppy little sour with a mint exit that pushes the whole thing to the next level.

By Jason Scavone

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