Talk:Rum and Coke

Name change
Really needs to be renamed what everybody in North America at least calls it: "Rum and Coke" or just "Rum Coke". No one outside Dade County calls it a "Cuba Libre". 72.209.63.226 (talk) 01:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Seriously, the fact that this page is not called Rum and Coke is indicative of how awful Wikipedia can be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.25.109 (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Amazingly ethnocentric US Americans! Here in Europe, everybody knows the name "Cuba Libre"... It's good Wikipedia isn't entirely controlled by rednecks...--82.83.141.225 (talk) 19:04, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, in the English-speaking world --and this is, after all, the English-language version of Wikipedia-- it's almost universally called a "Rum and Coke". The article points out that "Rum and Coke" is the most popular name in the USA, the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia. Oh, and India, too. (No data given for New Zealand or South Africa.) Therefore, I endorse changing the title of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.84.185.8 (talk) 04:36, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Rum and Coke and Cuba Libre are two different things.
 * Seconded. Guess which one has lime in it and which one hasn't. This page doesn't need a name change, rum and coke should get its own page or at least the two distinct drinks should be separated, certainly not equated and not on the very first words FFS! FWIW, I'd be pissed if I ordered a rum and coke and it contained anything but said ingredients. Likewise, I'd be pissed if the bartender was skimping on the lime with my cuba libre. 84.250.167.86 (talk) 19:54, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Cuba libre
Wikipedia doesn't capitalize cocktails (MOS:CAPS), and Cuba libre is used in reliable sources as well. This article should follow WP style, of course. -- JHunterJ (talk)
 * Cuba libre make less sense decapitalised than Rum and Coke, and Rum and Coke was dealt with above. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Google ngram. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:09, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Cuba libre makes more sense decapitalized, since libre isn't a proper noun (nor proper adjective there) and Coke is. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Better ngram, but capitalization is still a style issue. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:14, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * What’s your opinion on Rum and Coke vs Rum and coke? Coke being a tradename makes the difference. I don’t think you contributed to the discussion above.  I think Rum and Coke alongside Cuba libre looks incongruous. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:57, 30 May 2020 (UTC) (I guess you answered 14:52)
 * Right, Coke being a tradename (proper noun) makes the difference. I think capitalizing Cuba Libre is inconsistent with old fashioned, tequila sunrise, screwdriver, martini, margarita, mojito, rum and Coke, Jack and Coke, white Russian, bloody Mary, Manhattan, whiskey sour, Moscow mule, etc. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We don't even capitalize champagne cocktail (which a case could be made for capitalizing Champagne). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:02, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Tequila Sunrise (cocktail) seems to be capitalized. I'd much prefer to see consistency achieved, or not, through discussion than through quiet individual actions.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Food and drink aren't proper nouns, so MOS:CAPS applies, unless there's some reason not to apply it. If there's one other inconsistent article, consistency is pretty straightforwardly achieved, it seems. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * “only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia”. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)


 * and : I'm late to this party and haven't been able to be very active lately, but I reviewed the cited sources, and of them Curtis, Gjelten, and Kurlansky decapitalize "libre" and at least 2 others aren't clear as the name only appears in all caps. There's a good argument to be made that the name should be capitalized, as it's from a slogan that's usually capitalized, but at the same time there's clearly inconsistency in the top quality sources. As such, IMO we should defer to Wikipedia's style guideline, which favors avoiding caps in cases of inconsistency.--Cúchullain t/ c 16:21, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * On caps in "rum and Coke", I didn't recheck, but from my comments two years ago only one of the given sources decapitalizes "Coke". That should qualify as a "substantial majority" of reliable sources capitalizing it. "Rum" is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, so it shouldn't be capitalized here except where sentence case calls for it.--Cúchullain t/ c 16:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I’m good with all that. Coming in cold, I expected to find cocktail names to be treated as proper names, but sources don’t, and Wikipedia should follow the sources.  Coke being a trademark was important. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:31, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The song
I don't have Coulombe, but Curtis has this to say about the rights to the song: "In February 1947, a federal judge prohibited Amsterdam and the other defendants from further profiting. He ordered up an accounting, ... and said henceforth all profits would go to Belasco." GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Not in source (and confused to boot)
"Light rums such as Bacardi became favored for cocktails, as they were considered to mix better than harsher dark rums" is not in source [8]; all it says is that tourists found that "light Cuban rum" mixed well with everything. That's not the same thing at all:

1. Darker rums aren't inherently "harsher"---given otherwise identical production methods (fresh cane juice vs. dried cane juice vs. molasses (and what grade of molasses), yeast, inclusion or exclusion of backset/dunder (and, if included, use of aged/secondarily fermentated/rotted of dunder (and possibly other ingredients/waste) from dunder pits vs. use of fresh dunder from the still), still design, barrel material and history, etc.), longer-aged rums will (up to a point) tend to be both darker and *smoother* than younger ones.

2. To the extent that "light Cuban rum" has fewer "harsh" flavor notes than *many* darker rums (produced in other countries), that reflects the fact that rums (light or otherwise) from former Spanish colonial possessions (including, but not limited to, Cuba) tend to

2.a (Unlike most rums from former French possessions) use molasses, rather than fresh cane juice (which results in fewer green/"grassy" notes);

2.b (Unlike most rums from most former English possessions) be entirely column-distilled, not pot-distilled (which results in a less intense flavor overall); and

2.c (Unlike many (though not all) rums from *Jamaica*, specifically) not use dunder pits, nor extremely long fermentation periods (which results in not having the intense, estery, overripe/rotten banana funk characteristic ("hogo") of many Jamaican rums).

3. Light "Spanish-style" rums *do* tend to be more versatile as a mixer than darker "Spanish-style" rum (or "English-style" or "French-style" rums of any hue), but that's not because it's less "harsh"; it's because it's less *flavorful*. Any strong flavors, even if they're not harsh on their own, will tend to clash with *something*, and therefore are unsuitable for mixing with it. Less flavor means more versatility, at the expense of less contribution of anything positive to the drink. That, and not a lack of "harshness", is why particularly neutral vodka is even more versatile than light Spanish-style rum---and even less interesting in its own right. 74.69.130.146 (talk) 04:04, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I have removed this. GA-RT-22 (talk) 12:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Virgin Cuba Libre
Virgin Cuba Libre redirects here but isn't mentioned here or in any other article. If one knows what "virgin" means in the context of beverages one can probably work out the meaning, but otherwise the redirect isn't providing much utility to the reader. Should a mention be added to avoid confusion (probably here, but perhaps at Coca-Cola, which I suppose would be the closest synonym), or should the redirect be deleted, or some other outcome? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:11, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I have nominated it for deletion at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 26. GA-RT-22 (talk) 21:05, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

File:Cuba Libre.jpg
There seems to be a lack of consensus what fruit is in the image on this page. The traditional garnish for a Cuba Libre is in fact limes, but the fruit in the picture is clearly yellow. It's unclear from the angle if they are lemons or simply yellow limes. Is there any way we can get a source from the author of the picture, or otherwise a general consensus on how to caption it? Soweli Rin (talk) 22:12, 5 May 2022 (UTC)


 * You could ask the photographer, although he hasn't been active on Flickr since 2011 so he may not see your question. The simplest solution might be to just remove any mention of garnish from the caption. GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:19, 5 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The fruit in the picture is, in fact, green. Adjust your monitor accordingly. As for the pulp/whatever, I'd want an expert opinion to challenge the idea that it's not a lime, given there must be any amount of varieties of lime and a range of common colours for each of them. More to the point, as limes ripen(/over-ripen/whatever) their zest becomes increasingly more yellow. Hence the various colours of "lime green" tend to be fairly yellow colours of green. 84.250.167.255 (talk) 20:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You may need to adjust your monitor, or you may be looking at the wrong photo. The zest of the fruit in the glass on the right (the left one is in shadow) is about 150 red, 110 green, and 50 blue (normalized to 255). Given the sRGB color profile, that puts it solidly in the yellow range. GA-RT-22 (talk) 21:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)