Beverage of the week: Gosling’s canned Dark ‘n Stormys are wonderful… until you add fruit

Canned dark and stormies make sense, especially if Gosling’s is making them … until you add extra fruit.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

I love a good dark and stormy. I’d never had the classic cocktail before a work trip to Bermuda, where it’s the national standby. Then, since rum, ginger beer and limes are easy to come by here in the states, it became a staple at home — a simple to make cocktail that doesn’t have more steps than a whiskey-and-Coke but feels significantly classier.

Gosling’s, maker of both rum and ginger beer, decided to streamline that process even further and jump into a crowded market of canned cocktails with its signature drink. Their Dark ‘n Stormys come in four different flavors: original, cherry, pineapple and mango. And because dark and stormies rule, I took it upon myself to try all four.

The good news? Gosling’s knows what it’s doing when it comes to the original. The bad news? Well, there isn’t much sense innovating when you’ve got a base model that’s just about perfect.