This is the fastest, simplest recipe to be found for a keto Dark and Stormy. Enjoy this refreshing drink during these hot summer nights!
Is this drink truly a Dark n’ Stormy?
Technically, the Dark n’ Stormy is traditionally made with Goslings Black Seal Rum and Ginger Beer. I violate the traditional Dark n’ Stormy before I start, because I use an alternate rum. I also move away from ginger beer to a spiced-up ginger ale.
But this drink has all the effects of the Dark n’ Stormy. There’s the gorgeous visual of the dark rum floating into the cloudy ginger drink, and the sweetness of the rum and ginger followed by a kick of spice. It’s a wonderful cocktail. Are my noodles made from zucchini truly “noodles”? Is a crepe made from cream cheese and egg truly a crepe? At the end of the day, qualifying foods into meeting precise definitions is mostly useless. It’s all about hitting all of the same cravings of the Dark n’ Stormy I remember. This drink does that. Therefore, I deem this drink a darn good keto Dark n’ Stormy.
Ketofying the Dark n’ Stormy
In my pina colada post, I discussed that rum has no carbs after distillation. However, some manufacturers add sugar, molasses, or caramel back into their products after distillation. Adding back molasses, caramel, and other spices makes dark rums. And the Dark n’ Stormy really just isn’t the same without the dark rum floating atop ginger liquid.
For this recipe, I use Kraken Black Spiced Rum. We first bought this rum because it’s bottle is very cool. After trying the rum, Srikanth got hooked on its sweetness, and it is now a staple in our liquor cabinet.
Luckily, kind people quantified the sugar in various rums. Black spiced Kraken has a reported 26 grams per liter, which is 1.15 net carbs in the 1.5 oz added to a standard drink. This is also in agreement with Cronometer’s consumer database. Overall, this is completely workable into my daily carb allowance!
The other main component: Ginger Beer
After verifying that my chosen rum is acceptable, the next step is to find a good ginger beer. Beware: regular ginger beer easily has 10+ net carbs in the 3 oz required for this drink. There are low carb diet ginger beers on the market – Bundaberg with 1.4 g net carbs in 3 oz, Saxby’s with 0.1 g, Remedy with 2.3 g, Stoli with 0. But any drink can be misleading, like Fever-Tree’s Naturally Light Ginger Beer with 4.5 g net carbs in 3 oz.
Furthermore, none of these diet ginger beers are available at my grocery store. I have no time/patience to obtain ginger beer by other means (eg, another store or off the internet). There are other keto food bloggers on the internet who had other workarounds for ginger beer, including ginger simple syrup. But I was looking for a recipe that was fast, simple, and wouldn’t leave me with leftovers requiring storage.
I came up with this idea after making my enchilada sauce, which entails adding cornstarch to a small volume of water. Adding the powder to a smaller volume makes it more amenable to focused whisking, thereby more easily dissolving it. And I had my eureka: take diet ginger ale, then add ground ginger and more sugar to make it taste like ginger beer. It works. And it lets you completely customize the amount of kick you want from the ginger flavoring.
Where do these carbs come from?
For the sake of transparency, the source of carbs in this recipe are:
- Kraken Black Spiced Rum: 1.5 g
- 0.5 tsp Ground Ginger: 0.5 g
- 1 packet Stevia (1 g): 0.8 g
Dark and Stormy Cocktail
Ingredients
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 packet Stevia, (or any other sweetener of your choice – 1g)
- 3 oz Diet Ginger Ale
- 1½ oz Kraken Black Spiced Rum, or dark rum of your choice
- Lime Slices, for garnish
Instructions
- Place the ground ginger, stevia, diet ginger ale, and lime juice in a small bowl. Whisk gently until the ginger and stevia dissolve completely.
- Place ~6 ice cubes in a short glass. Pour the ginger ale liquid over the ice cubes.
- Next, add the dark rum to the drink. To create a nice layer effect, your technique should be gentle to minimize disturbing the ginger ale liquid. My technique: slowly drizzle the rum over the side of the jigger, straight onto one of the ice cubes.
- Garnish with a slice of lime and serve cold. Some people mix their drinks before consuming (hence the gold straws in our drinks), others leave their layers separated. Anything goes with this drink!
Notes
- Macros: 164 calories, 1 g protein, 2.8 g net carbs, 16 g alcohol
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