tikibars

I agree that a Singapore Sling, made well, would be a great addition to your menu. However, the recipe that was linked to - although it supposedly comes straight from Raffles - is suspect to me. FOUR OUNCES of pineapple juice? Yuk! This reeks to me of a hotel trying to give people a full glass without making production cost of the drink too high. Trader Vic did this rather more balanced version (paragraph cut and pasted from Tiki Road Trip, 2nd ed.): Singapore Sling This drink evolved from entire category of drinks called ‘slings’, that date back centuries. The drink as we know it today was invented circa 1915 (definitely pre-Tiki) at Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The original Raffles recipe has been lost (although they’ll serve you a different Singapore Sling to this day). Early recipes called for mixing equal parts gin, Benedictine, and cherry brandy, and to fill with club soda. By the time Trader Vic got hold if it around 1947, the recipe became more complex: .5 ounce fresh lime juice 1 dash Angostura bitters 1 ounce cherry brandy 2 ounces gin Benedictine Ginger Ale Add lime, gin, bitters, brandy, and ice into 14 ounce chimney glass, add lime shell, stir, fill with Ginger Ale, add float of Benedictine and sprig of mint.

This list is pretty comprehensive and will get you through most of the classic Trader Vic and Donn Beach drinks, as well as the drinks by those two gentlemen and others as printed in the four Jeff Berry books. One note, Okolehao is no longer made. And (perhaps it was such a given that you didn't feel the need to list it) you skipped the single most important thing possible on this list: RUM. Now, the various varieties of rum needed are a whole other list in themselves...!

Trader Vic's has changed their recipe, and they now use the EVIL high fructose corn syrup in their passion fruit syrup. I recommend discontinuing use of it. I have tried the mentioned home-made version, which is super easy to make and very good. Just get Goya brand passion fruit pulp ($2.50 at Harvest Time foods in Chicago), and mix it 1:1 with your simple syrup. Shake like mad and maybe add a bit of 151 clear rum or vodka as a preservative. After trying this easy recipe, I never will go back to commercial syrup again - and it is cheaper!

The drink I mentioned above might be considered as such. Someone is actually publishing the recipe in print, so I can't release it just yet, but I am rather happy with what I came up with. Soon...

You're right that it's not common, but there are a few classics: The Blood and Sand and Satan's Whiskers cocktails come immediately to mind. These both include orange juice rather than lemon or lime, which is interesting. There's a version of the El Floridita that includes sweet vermouth along with Cuban-style white rum, lime juice, crème de cacao and grenadine. The Palm Beach Special is a nice one, with gin, grapefruit juice and sweet vermouth. I can't think of any notweorthy ones with lemon juice and sweet vermouth. ← How about lemon AND lime AND orange, AND sweet vermouth AND creme de cacao AND grenadine....! Tortuga by Trader Vic (Still served in many TV's restaurants, and a favorie of mine to make at home)... 1 ounce Demarara 151 rum 1.5 ounce amber rum (try Pampero) .5 ounce fresh orange juice .5 ounce fresh lime juice .25 ounce fresh lemon juice .25 ounce grenadine 1 ounce red vermouth .5 ounce orange Curacao .5 ounce Creme de Cacao Shake all with ice and lime rind, pour into tall glass.

I agree with most of the above post. Melted ice is definitely a key component here - shaking for *just* the right amount of time is key. One bit of trivia: I have always been under the impression that modern Ogeat is sweeter than what was used in Bergeron's era. rather than 1/4 oz Orgeat and 1/4 oz simple in my Mai Tais, I have always used 1/2 oz Orgeat - the sugar is already in there. On the blender issue, I personally don't prefer slurpee drinks. I usually do Beach and Bergeron blender drinks with crushed ice and just blend on a rather low setting for a few seconds to fully integrate all of the ingredients, but to still leave discreet bits of ice floating around.

Tell that to Jeff Berry! I know a **lot** of purists when it comes to tropicals, people who are as uptight about promoting and sticking to the 'real' recipes as any martini snob is.

"one of only six bottles in existence" should be "one of only six KNOWN bottles in existence" My glass (or bottle of rum) is always half-full! I like to think that there is a hidden hoarde out there somewhere that some sucker is going to sell me for a buck a bottle. "ah, this old stuff - it's probably no good anymore"! ...a man can dream.

Trader Vic and Donn Beach had a rivalry for decades that was more or less amicable - except when it came to drink recipes. Donn made a drink consisting of rum, lime, orgeat, and curacao. A few years later, Vic made a similar drink and named it the Mai Tai. It caught on. Don and Vic argued over who invented the Mai Tai. Vic was first with the name, but Donn had the recipe (basically) first. They sued each other. The Trader Vic's Mai Tai recipe is the 'real' Mai Tai, but Donn won the right to say he invented it, because of his previous, differently-named drink. And then he went on to make a completely different drink, and called it HIS Mai Tai. Meanwhile, Donn had a drink called Suffering Bastard. Trader Vic's restaurants, to this day, serve a Suffering Bastard, but it is essentially an extra-strong Trader Vic's Mai Tai with a cucumber stalk in it. However, the original SB, Donn's version, is a totally different drink. The recipe that Jeff Berry published (whiskey, ginger ale, etc. - someone posted it above) is the original Donn Beach drink. Back to the rums - Vic used a 17-year-old J. Wray and Nephew rum, which is now long out of production. Some recipes call for a mix of 'light' and 'dark' rums, but I find that many mid-to-high quality amber rums will work. Apparently, the Appleton v/x is similar to the old J. Wray. I like to use Mt. Gay or St. James from time to time too. Lots more about Donn and Vic here: http://www.tydirium.net/tiki/tikiroadtrip.html

Yes. Yes, but try the Cruzan Black Strap, it is even better than the Goslings.

Yes, in Chicago it sells for about $17/bottle. I have been playing with cocktail recipes using this stuff, in any one else has recipes to share, i am all ears with shaker at the ready.

Mai Tais, in detail... http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/vie...=20200&forum=10 In my book Tiki Road Trip... (get it here): http://www.tydirium.net/tiki/tikiroadtrip.html .....I wrote: Mai Tai The quintessential Tiki drink. During the past six decades, the term “Mai Tai” has devolved into a generic term for any swill containing cheap rum and canned fruit juice. We are here to remind you that this is a kick-ass drink, when made properly. Spread the gospel. Here is the original “Mai Tai Roa Ae” invented by Trader Vic himself, circa 1944. 1 ounce Jamaican rum (try 15 or 8 year old Appleton) 1 ounce Martinique rum (try St. James) .5 ounce orange curacao .5 ounce Orgeat Juice from one fresh lime (a touch less than one ounce) Shake all ingredients vigorously with crushed ice. Add a sprig of fresh mint and the lime rind. Hawaiian-style Mai Tai Pretty much every single bar on the Hawaiian islands makes their Mai Tai thusly: 1.) Mix all ingredients except dark rum (such as Myers). 2.) Float the dark rum on top of the drink. What the drink actually consists of varies widely. We recommend staying close to the recipe above, but pineapple juice is almost always added in Hawai’i. Avoid grenadine. Note that modern Orgeat is more sweet than the stuff that was around in 1944, so the 1/4 to 1/2 oz of simple syrup called for in older recipes is no longer needed.

Mixed one of these up the other night too. This is an intense drink! Complex on the tongue, heavy, not for the feint of heart, (and expensive to make!)

"...it's a little naive to assume that this reataurant would have any real mixological expertise. This is especially true given the overall poor state of mixology in Houston, but I wouldn't assume that Smith & Wollensky in New York City would do any better. It's a sad fact that getting a well-made Sidecar (never mind a real Daiquiri instead of vaguely boozey slurpee) is by no means a gimme, even at an expensive steakhouse. You're way better off ordering something like a Martini or Manhattan, where you can specify exactly how you want it made." I am not sure why you guys are surprised by all of this. I find that it is almost impossible to get a decently made drink anywhere, at all. I travel a lot, so I have been in basically every major US city multiple time, and also a lot of European cities and even south pacific islands. The number of bartenders, percentage-wise, out there who care about their craft - worldwide - is a single digit number, definitely. I go into most bars, when with friends, assuming that the drinks are going to be mediocre at best. When I get to pick the place, there are only a few places I will go to in Chicago (where I live) anymore: Violet Hour, Weegees, Nacional 27, maybe one or two others. You're going to get a crappy drink in virtually every plush hotel lobby bar, in every corner sports bar, in every fancy restaurant bar, in every trendy 20--somethings bar, and in every dance club bar. With very few exceptions. The solution here is not to complain about the bad ones (they are the rule, not the exception) but to promote and revel in the good ones, so that they survive and so that we can direct traffic towards them, supporting their mission, and keeping them in business.

If this is your opinion, then you have made my thesis that "Point is that Milwaukee is ripe for a high-end bar" doubly true.

Thanks. I have limes, grapefruit bitters, Matusalem, and Creme de Violette (Sams has it now, the same brand that VH has behind the bar), so I think I am off to a good start. Might have to come in and do some research soon. :-) I called that drink 'delicate' and Michel said "we prefer atmospheric".

← Yeah, I actually agree - I hadn't seen the ingredients list. Looks sketchy. Still, this stuff was pretty good in a drink I once had... but then again I'd had three drinks at Nacional 27 first, so who knows what sort of shape I was in...

Ah, thanks for sharing that. I had the ingredients right, but my ratios were still a little off. I think I have to start trying to figure out the Hush and Wonder next (don't tell me, I wanna see if I can do it!).

I have been working on a recipe for St Germain and gin with a champagne float, and after making about 10 variations, I realized that the only thing keeping it from being a really kick ass drink was the champagne. When I deleted the float, I was really happy with the rest. I'll post it here soon...

Cleveland's Velvet Tango Room has NONE of these three advantages, and they seem to be doing well. Some people were mentioning Milwaukee. Their two best bars - Bryant's and At Random have closed. Bryant's had old-school bartenders who had been working there for like 50 years and who had memorized 500 drinks each (or so they claimed - and I believed it). At Random had sort of mediocre drinks, but the atmosphere in there was amazing - somewhere between your grandmother's living room and Frank Sinatra's rec room, and so dark that you couldn't see what you were drinking anyway. Point is that Milwaukee is ripe for a high-end bar.

When I was younger it was all about the quantity. Give me whatever cheap beer I could afford to drink a lot of, just as long as it got me loaded. My habits have spun around 180 degrees over the past fifteen years, but very quickly in the past 3 years or so. Now, if I can't have a really nice cocktail (such as from Pegu, Violet Hour, Velvet Tango Room, my own home, etc), then I don't want to bother drinking at all. If I get dragged to a mediocre bar with pals, I will drink OJ or water. I just don't want to spend the cash on a crappy drink, and I don't want to deal with a hangover, ruining my internal organs, and not being able to drive unless I know I am going to really enjoy the hell out of a drink. If it isn't potentially delicious, then I don't want it.

Wanna pipe in that I love all of the various vintage Trader Vic's books; he did a few of 'em. But back to Chartreuse - Violet Hour in Chicago does a killer drink called Poor Liza with Chartreuse and pear brandy. Absolutely amazing. I caught Toby in a good mood one day, and he made me a Liza with the VEP Chartreuse (that's the $100/bottle stuff), and it was transcendant. I have been trying to reverse engineer the Liza, and I think I am pretty close, but there is something about drinking them at VH...

A bartender here in Chicago made me a drink with some Saturnus brand Swedish Punch last year. The bottle also said Arraks in big letters. Went to find some on line, and bookmarked these two links: http://www.saturnus.se/eng/produkter/likorextrakt.html http://www.marinamarket.com/beverages.htm The first is the maker's web site, and the second is an importer who appears to carry it in the US. Their order system is a little dodgy but you can get a small bottle (35cl) for $5.25 plus shipping. I haven't tried to order any yet.