Hummingbird
Panama Pacific Rum · Pineapple · Rhine Hall EDV · Cream Sherry · Crème de Banane
Recipe by Miles Macquarrie / @lois_must_die — Kimball House, Atlanta
The Hummingbird lands in the space between a tiki drink and something more composed. Panama Pacific 9-year aged rum provides the aged, oxidative backbone; spent pineapple cordial (made from the husks and cores after juicing) adds a roasted tropical depth that fresh pineapple never would; Rhine Hall's pineapple eau de vie doubles the fruit note with a distilled clarity. Cream sherry and crème de banane bring the drink home, adding the quiet sweetness of the tropics without announcing themselves.
Freezer-Door Batch (1L)
The spent pineapple cordial is the heart of this drink. It's made from the parts of the pineapple you'd otherwise throw away — the roasted husks and cores produce a deeper, more complex pineapple flavor than fresh juice. Plan to make it when you're using fresh pineapple for something else.
Spent Pineapple Cordial
A zero-waste technique — uses the husks and cores from fresh pineapples after juicing. The roasting step is what makes it interesting. Yield: approximately 400ml.
Single Serve
Why This Drink Exists
The hummingbird is the smallest warm-blooded animal that can sustain hovering flight. It burns energy faster than almost anything else alive. There's something of that quality in this drink — it's simultaneously very light and very concentrated, all fruit and no weight despite the aged rum backbone.
The spent pineapple technique is central to the Kimball House philosophy of respecting ingredients fully. When you juice a fresh pineapple, the husks and cores still contain enormous aromatic and flavor potential — caramelized sugars, concentrated tropical esters, the slightly funky edge of oxidized pineapple. Turning those spent parts into a cordial means the drink gets the roasted, deep pineapple note that no amount of fresh juice can provide.
Rhine Hall is a Chicago distillery that makes American fruit brandies and eaux de vie from Midwestern and regional fruit. Their pineapple eau de vie is precise and clear — you taste the fruit, not the barrel, not the grain. It layers over the cordial to create a pineapple that's both cooked and raw simultaneously.
The Flavor Arc
What Each Ingredient Brings
Panama Pacific 9-Year Rum
A Barbados-style aged rum with nine years of maturation. Deep dried fruit, light vanilla, and a structured backbone. Less funky than Jamaican-style rums, more elegant and composed.
The rum is the architecture. Its aged complexity is what separates this from a fruity party drink — the dried fruit and vanilla notes connect to the cream sherry and crème de banane rather than competing with them.
Spent Pineapple Cordial
Made from the husks and cores of juiced pineapples, roasted and then simmered into a sweetened cordial. The heat transforms the raw pineapple compounds into something more complex — caramelized, slightly funky, deeply tropical.
The depth ingredient. Fresh pineapple juice is bright and acidic; spent pineapple cordial is roasted and complex. The difference is between pineapple and the idea of pineapple.
Rhine Hall Pineapple Eau de Vie
Eau de vie — literally 'water of life' — is an unaged, clear fruit spirit distilled from fermented fruit. Rhine Hall's pineapple EDV captures the fresh, raw pineapple aroma with a clean spirit backbone.
The brightness layer. Where the cordial provides depth, the EDV provides lift and clarity. Together they create a complete pineapple dimension — cooked and raw, deep and bright.
Cream Sherry
Fortified wine from Jerez, Spain, blended to be rich and sweet with pronounced oxidative, nutty character. Pedro Ximénez-based cream sherries are the richest; a lighter cream sherry keeps the drink from getting heavy.
The quiet sweetness. Cream sherry adds a nutty, dried-fruit warmth that connects to the rum without announcing itself. It's the ingredient that makes the drink feel complete rather than one-dimensional.
Variations to Explore
Jamaican Rum Swap
Replace Panama Pacific with Smith & Cross or Appleton 12. The funky, hogo-forward Jamaican rum profile adds an overripe tropical note that amplifies the spent pineapple.
Bigger, funkier, more tiki-adjacent. The hummingbird becomes a bird of paradise.
Fresh Pineapple Version
Replace spent pineapple cordial with 0.75 oz fresh pineapple juice + 0.25 oz rich simple syrup. Lose the depth, gain the brightness.
Simpler and more immediately appealing. Good when you don't have cordial made. Not the same drink.
Coconut Cream Addition
Add 0.5 oz coconut cream to the single serve. Full tiki territory — a Hummingbird Colada.
Rich, indulgent, completely different. This is what happens if the hummingbird lands in the tropics and decides to stay.
The Hummingbird is a reminder that what you throw away is often the most interesting part.
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