The Tiki Drink Discussion Topic

[FrogPrincesse]

Banana S&C is high on the list of things I want to make at home.

How long an infusion do you envisage?

I have a method but it's secret at this point. Try extracting the details from me next time I am in London.

[Plantes Vertes]

Hmph. Better make that quick.

[Rafa]

It should make a banana Daiquiri even Dan can get behind.

[FrogPrincesse]

After all this discussion, I just had to go with the Jet Pilot last night. Appleton 12, Barbados 5, and Lemon Hart 151 for the rum combo. St. George for the absinthe, homemade falernum.

It's interesting because my homemade falernum has a roasted flavor, almost like a slightly bitter butter caramel. This is a dessert drink for sure.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My current topic of study is the Ancient Mariner.  Having never had one before I followed the traditional Beachbum recipe as best I could:

 

1 oz Appleton 12

1 oz Lemon Hart 151 (no 80 in house)

1/4 oz St. Elizabeth

3/4 oz fresh lime juice

1/2 oz fresh white grapefruit juice

1/2 oz syrup

 

 

Garnish of mint and lime.  Unfortunately the result was cloyingly sweet.  Though the flavors were quite nice.  I added another half ounce white grapefruit juice which improved the recipe a lot.

 

For my next try I omitted the syrup entirely:

 

1 oz Appleton 12

1 oz Lemon Hart 151

1/4 oz St. Elizabeth

3/4 oz fresh lime juice (generous)

1 oz fresh white grapefruit juice

 

This is delightful and refreshing.  St. Elizabeth is plenty sweet enough.

 

 

My next project is a zombie (since now I have an essentially infinite supply of lovely white grapefruit that won't keep forever).  The question is what species of cinnamon to use?  Some say Don used Ceylon cinnamon.  And since I much prefer Ceylon cinnamon anyway, that is what I intend to use.  Thoughts?

 

And while it wouldn't technically be a zombie, of course, I wonder what would happen if one were to replace the cinnamon with pimento dram??  Anyone tried it?

[Hassouni]

It really doesn't matter what type of cinnamon

[JoNorvelleWalker]

It really doesn't matter what type of cinnamon

 

This is by no means settled canon.

[Czequershuus]

I prefer Ceylon Cinnamon for cinnamon syrup.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I forgot to ask, does one really need a blender to make a zombie?  Would it be OK to just shake it?

[Hassouni]

If you have finely crushed ice, shaking is fine

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'm having my first zombie since the '80's...or maybe that was the '70's.  Probably very different recipe from what I enjoyed way back when in tiki joints:

 

1 1/2 oz Appleton 12

1 1/2 oz Brugal Anejo

1 oz Lemon Hart 151

1/2 oz Taylor's Falernum

3/4 oz lime juice

1 teaspoon grenadine

10 ml white grapefruit juice

5 ml tincture of cinnamon*

1 dash Angostura

6 drops Jade 1901

 

Garnish of fresh mint.

 

 

*In place of Beachbum Berry's specified cinnamon syrup in Don's mix #4 I used tincture of cinnamon:  one dozen quills of organic Celon cinnamon in an iSi.  Solvent (W&N) to cover.  Charged with one cylinder nitrous oxide.  Infused one minute and rapidly discharged.  Method of Dave Arnold.

 

 

Very nice indeed.  The sweetness is just right.  Oddly the primary flavors are Absinthe and the solvent used for the cinnamon extraction.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  Doesn't taste like much alcohol.

[Adam George]

That Zombie wouldn't stand a chance.  

 

Great recipe and ingredients, Jo.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

One note about the zombie, the ice did not last.  I shook with small cubes then strained into chilled glass with nice, dry finely crushed ice (small cubes processed in chilled Cuisinart).  The ice was completely gone by the time the drink was two thirds finished.

 

I suppose I could try to find a larger vase or pitcher to hold a bit more ice, that or learn to down my zombies quicker.  I'm thinking to try it with small cubes of ice instead of finely crushed.

 

These are the zombie glasses that I'm using:

http://www.crystalclassics.com/marquis/vintage/vintagehiballset.htm

 

 

Thoughts?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My zombie tonight is same recipe but I played with the rums a bit:

 

1 oz Appleton 12

1 oz Atlantico Private Cask

1 oz Gosling's Old

1 oz Lemon Hart 151

1/2 oz Taylor's Falernum

3/4 oz lime juice

1 teaspoon grenadine

10 ml white grapefruit juice

5 ml tincture of cinnamon

1 dash Angostura

6 drops Jade 1901

 

Almost left out the citrus! Shake, dumped, and topped up with the little Kotobuki mini cubes I like. Garnish of fresh mint. Noticed I left out the tincture of cinnamon. (Not that I didn't have all twelve ingredients laid out on the table in front of me.)  Reshake, redump (over sink this time).

 

I think I liked last night's ever so slightly better, but I can't complain. The Jade does not stand out so much in this version. And,yes, I am sure I added it. I think I will stir in a bit more cinnamon.

 

I did, 5 ml more...and half an ounce falernum, an ounce Brugal Anejo, 6 more drops of Jade. Nice, but now it needs citrus. Wow this is hard. Added some more grapefruit (didn't measure) and another dash of bitters. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead, or at least while this is still drinkable. Don knows more than I do. Why do I even try?

 

Actually I think more lime juice would fix it, but at a dollar a lime I am not about to find out.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight was the Jet Pilot:

 

1 oz Smith & Cross

3/4 oz Atlantico Private Cask

3/4 oz Lemon Hart 151

1/2 oz Taylor's Falernum

1/2 oz lime juice

1/2 oz white grapefruit juice

1/2 oz tincture of cinnamon

1 dash Angostura

6 drops Jade 1901

 

 

Garnished with spent half lime and mint.  (With this neat new glass I could garnish with a spent half grapefruit!)  Not bad, nothing to complain of.  Though please explain why one would make this drink in preference to a zombie??  Unless, of course, one ran out of grenadine in the middle of the night and had no pomegranates left.  Or, I suppose, unless one had to operate heavy machinery in the next day or three.

 

In my opinion the zombie is better balanced.  Here, the cinnamon stands out.  Perhaps my tincture is stronger than the cinnamon syrup of the Jet Pilot creator?  Even so I could not identify cinnamon specifically in the zombie, everything blended together so well.  I anticipated that the Jet Pilot recipe using half ounce cinnamon syrup would be sweeter than mine using tincture of cinnamon and chose Atlantico for the rum since Atlantico is on the sweeter side.  This substitution worked.  The drink's sweetness is just about right.

 

The Jade 1901 comes through just a bit.  Perhaps not as much as with the zombie.  I must say my rum selections work pretty well, plus the half ounce W&N in the tincture of cinnamon, of course.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight I am back to zombies:

 

1 1/2 oz Appleton 12

1 1/2 oz Brugal Anejo

1 oz Lemon Hart 151

1/2 oz Taylor's Falernum

3/4 oz lime juice

1 teaspoon grenadine

10 ml white grapefruit juice

5 ml tincture of cinnamon

1 dash Angostura

6 drops Jade 1901

 

Garnish of fresh mint.  I also had a few ml of lemon juice left over from my coleslaw so I threw that in too.  Very nice although like last night's Jet Pilot, the tincture of cinnamon is a little strong.  The tincture seems to be undead.

 

For me Kotobuki mini ice works much better than crushed ice in my zombie.

 

I still think the zombie balance is better than the Jet Pilot, for what is basically the same drink.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight I carefully replicated the above zombie (only not adding any stray lemon juice this time).  And I strained onto fresh Kotobuki ice rather than shake and dump.

 

This is so good.  I am trying to decide whether I prefer the zombie or the mai tai.  An existential question.  This may take years.  Nice thing about the Anova is that dinner will wait for me.

 

But I do have a tiki question:  one grapefruit makes a lot zombies.  How do commercial establishments that use fresh juice account for this?  A related question is how to overcome the problem fresh white grapefruit are only in season for a limited portion of the year?  Does grapefruit juice freeze well?  Or is there some other secret?

[lesliec]

Freezing should be fine. Squeeze the juice into ice cube trays for flexibility; once they're frozen break them out into a plastic bag.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Freezing should be fine. Squeeze the juice into ice cube trays for flexibility; once they're frozen break them out into a plastic bag.

 

Thanks!  Ten ml per cube should be just right for a zombie.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

With practice I am getting better at replicating my zombies.  I now have the time down to about half an hour.  The zombie balance is so good I have not felt need to tweak the recipe.

 

But with more reading and reflection I question (if I may) the Beachbum direction that the original 1934 zombie is made as a blender drink.  True, the blender was patented in the US in 1922, but as I understand it the blendor/blender wasn't really commercialized until 1937, when Waring and Vitamix released their products.

 

Charles Baker writing in 1939 describes the Waring blender, for bar drinks, as if it were some marvelous new thing.  Did Don know something everyone else did not?

[Hassouni]

Half an hour?

 

 

Made a pair of Navy Grogs for my friend and me, sans ice cone and adding the soda water at the end, after shaking and pouring (the Tiki+ recipe says to add to the mixer then shake, which seems nuts).  Used Lemon Hart 80, Appleton 12, and Don Q for the Dem, JA, and PR rums.

 

I added them to a glass full of crushed ice since I didn't have an ice cone, but I think next time, cubes it'll be, since it tasted a bit watery.

[Rafa]

Beachbum Berry and Martin Doudoroff have released a sequel app to their Tiki+ called Total Tiki. It features 70 new recipes in addition to the ones from the previous app, and lets you search them based on the ingredients you have on hand. It's also $10 and only available on iOS, and probably not worth it if you already own Berry's most recent books, but I'll be getting it.

[Hassouni]

If you have Tiki + could you compare it to that?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Half an hour?

 

Somehow I missed this, but, yes, no exageration.  Just finishing a zombie now.  A bit grapefruity bitter because I wrung out the last of a white grapefruit half that had been in the refrigerator over a week.  A splush of it came down on my head.  (They say grapefruit juice is great for hair.)

[Czequershuus]

Finally ordered BG Reynolds Pasion Fruit syrup, and set out looking for a simple experiment to try it out. I ended up doing the Hart of Darkness(link)

 

1.5 Oz Lemon Hart 151

0.5 Oz Lime Juice

0.25 Oz Lemon Juice

0.5 Oz Passionfruit Syrup

0.5 Oz Honey Syrup

0.25 Oz Soda Water

Blend(I shook and strained over crushed ice)

 

Very, very tasty. Also, with the 151, very, very dangerous. Speaking of dangerous, I am off to the store to buy some grapefruit so I can make a Zombie!