The original Dark 'n' Stormy was made with Gosling Black Seal rum and Barritt's Ginger Beer, but after the partnership between the two failed and the companies parted ways, Gosling Brothers created its own ginger beer. In a highball glass filled with ice pour the ginger beer and top floating with the Rum.

Gosling's is a delicious rum, and being the dark rum from Bermuda, it is unquestionably synonymous with the dark 'n' stormy. But, any number of dark rums are interchangeably lovely in this drink, including Coruba, Zaya, Cruzan's Blackstrap and the Lemon Hart 151 from Guyana.

The dark and stormy cocktail is traditionally made from dark rum and ginger beer, garnished with a slice of fresh lemon. Its famous competitor the moscow mule cocktail uses vodka instead of rum, often a spicier ginger beer and lime juice. Both these cocktails are best served in a tall high ball glass with lots of ice.

It was in this milieu of rum production and appreciation that the Dark 'n' Stormy was born. Legend says that the cocktail itself was born at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, where global sailors sought refuge from tempestuous weather.

Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton Who wrote “it was a dark and stormy night”? As with nearly all sayings that are now overdone, the first “dark and stormy night” started as an earnest original. The English novelist, playwright, and politician Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton used the line to open his 1830 book Paul Clifford.