Rum. The tipple of choice in the day of brave sailors and adventurous pirates. Made from exotic sugar cane and aged to perfection in barrels for years and years, patiently waiting for a connoisseur to appreciate its rich lore and subtle notes of... What? You've just got half a bottle of the cheapest store brand rum sitting in the cupboard and you want to jazz it up? Fair enough!

Rum is a spirit with a lot of depth and all of its cocktails have immensely interesting facts and stories, but sometimes you just need a quick and easy recipe to slap together for your friends so you can look cool and dynamic! Here's our pick of the 5 easiest rum cocktails you can probably make right this second!

Cuba Libre

Probably the most straightforward rum cocktail out there - so straightforward in fact it feels like cheating to even call it one, since it's essentially just a rum and coke.

Despite lots of conflicting origin stories, Cuba libre, meaning 'Cuba is free', is actually named after the cheers in the streets of Havana after the Americans ended the occupation of Cuba.

Almost ironically, the US' biggest export at the time, Coca Cola, and Cuba's biggest export, rum, joined together for the first time in glorious harmony.

Dark & Stormy

Dark & Stormys are simply a spirit mixed with ginger beer and limes - called a Mule - just like it's vodka based cousin, the Moscow Mule. Being able to create an awesome gradient between the darkness of the rum and the lightness of the ginger beer will mask to the uninitiated just how easy this drink is to make.

Dark & Stormys are unique amongst cocktails in that they must have a very specific ingredient - Gosling's Dark Rum, or they cannot be considered a real Dark & Stormy!

It even has a celebrity status as Mindy Kaling's favourite cocktail!

Mojito

Another god-sent pairing of rum and limes, but now featuring mint! 'Mojito' means 'to cast a little spell', and like any good magician using slight of hand, the stunning visuals of the drink distracts from just how simple it is to to make.

Churning rum, lime, sugar and soda is all it takes to produce possibly the most iconic crushed ice drink and one of the most visually appealing cocktails of all time in our humble opinion!

Mojitos are most commonly made with white rum but there's no hard and fast rule for what rum to use.

Daiquiri

As far as shaken cocktails go, daiquiris are as simple they come. Made up of only 3 basic ingredients but fortified as one of the most classic drinks of all time.

Since it was enjoyed by sailors and pirates who were on the seas for long periods of time, and being a remedy for scurvy it had to be simple so that it could be made quickly with scarce ingredients, yet not so horrible so that they would want to drink it. Safe to say it succeeded at both!

More modern iterations of the daiquiri build upon the basic framework by switching up flavours ranging from strawberry to bubblegum, and changing the texture by making them frozen.

Caipirinha

The hardest part about making this drink is getting your hands on the special Brazillian rum, known as Cachaça (and surprise, it's not even that hard!). Pour this over some limes muddled in brown sugar, and voilà! That's honestly all it takes to brag about how well travelled you are and probably have people believe you.

Caipirinhas, Brazil's national drink, are another drink with an uncertain origin story. The consensus is that it originated in São Paulo at the turn of the 20th century but most can't agree whether it was a drink for the wealthy elite, for sugar cane farmers, or a remedy for the Spanish flu - our guess is a combination of all three!

If you've made so many caipirinhas that you have no cachaça left,make a caipiroska by using vodka instead!

Got another spirit bottle lying around? Check out the easiest cocktails you can make with vodka, gin, tequila and whiskey too!