Tucked away amid the towering apartment blocks of Lónyay Street in Pest’s District IX, Rumba Café is a hidden shrine to Cuban culture – a basement bar bedecked with portraits of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, specializing in the rum drinks that infuse the streets of Havana with high-spirited harmony. Taking a page from Cuban history, the Rumba Café management is now on a mission to reach out to their Russian comrades by creating a new series of cocktails combining vodka with Caribbean flavors and flair.
A dimly lit den specializing in the art of making rum cocktails, Rumba Café has been a presence on the Budapest nightlife scene for years, awaiting thirsty citizens at its present location for the past year. Walking down Pest’s urban Lónyay Street, you can spot a moderate-sized red sign pointing down a flight of stairs, and straight into Cuba. Inspired by the island nation’s culture and imagery, the name and the ambience truly evoke the rundown atmosphere of the Caribbean’s communist outpost – the final result could only have been more perfect if they’d somehow incorporated the hood of a Lada 1500 or the backseat of a vintage Cadillac into the design. Adorned with a vibrant red color to match the theme, the walls are lined with long rows of the “honorable dead”, meaning the hundreds of empty rumbottles finished off by the owner and/or giddy groups of intoxicated patrons. However, we were pleased to learn recently that Rumba not only has a varied selection of Cuban rums, but also a wide range of vodkas – and now they are using this preferred Russian tipple to create a novel assortment of hybrid cocktails.
The idea of the style and interior comes from owner Danasz Diamandisz, aka Dimi, who has more than a decade of hospitality-industry experience under his belt. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of bartending, he can pretty much read the subconscious of clueless guests, and tell them which cocktail would best suit their taste and current mood.
News of Dimi using his insight to create new vodka cocktails proved to be so intriguing that we decided to join Rumba’s hourlong four-stage guided tour into the tropical realm of Russia’s favorite drink. With plenty of food in our bellies to soak up all the alcohol, we arrived to participate in an introductory course detailing the many different uses of the popular spirit. Our tour guide took our education very seriously: apart from giving us mini presentations about the history of vodka between rounds, he also demonstrated how the different vodka-based drinks were made... without revealing the top-secret tricks of the trade, of course.
We started out with a 5 cl shot, followed by a bunch of crackers topped with fish and caviar, as well as a few glasses of cucumber soda water to take the edge off. We learned that potatoes are not the only source of fine vodka: believe it or not, the Polish variety we tried was actually made of rye.
Our second “course”, was a much lighter tropical-flavored Passion Fruit Caiprischka with lots of ice and fresh pomegranate (not syrup!), which seemed less dangerous at first, as it was so sweet we could hardly taste the alcohol... but we can imagine that after the fourth or fifth round, this could cause some serious damage.
The crazier cocktail ideas tend to come from Dimi and his colleagues, but we were apparently not ready for any of them, and continued our tasting session with a less wild Moscow Mule. Tying in with the feel of the cocktail bar, the ginger beer-vodka mix flavored with zesty lime arrived in a mug decorated with the profile of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. We thought it was somewhat similar to the second drink in that the ginger overpowered almost every other ingredient, including the taste of the alcohol.
Upon being offered a choice between a sweet and a salty cocktail at the last stage, we thought we would go with White Russian, a classic dessert drink that’s perfect for rounding off a tasty, multi-course dinner. There are two methods of preparation: you either build one ingredient on top of the other, or you put everything in a shaker to combine. The former produces a much more attractive result, with the cream being distinctly separated from the vodka and the 3 cl of liquor. The edible decoration features ground and roasted coffee beans and thin, coffee flavored chocolate bars. Saying that it’s a sweet drink is an understatement, but unlike the Moscow Mule, the taste of alcohol is absolutely detectable.
Dimi also let us in on a little secret: he told us that no two cocktails are the same, as bartenders tend to put their signature on their creations, making every drink totally unique. Our tour came to an official end after the fourth drink, but as per Dimi’s instruction, we also knocked back a shot of Vietnamese vodka for a more comprehensive experience.
An ideal choice for team-building events, Rumba’s regular tasting tours will return soon, together with a whole lot of thematic days and an amateur mixer competition.
Rumba Café
Budapest 1093, Lónyay Street 28
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