Four-Rum Mai Tai

 

Story

The Mai Tai was one of the early tiki cocktails. There's some debate about who invented it, but cocktail archaeologist Jeff "Beachbum" Berry holds that Trader Vic invented the drink that we know today as the Mai Tai.  A classic daquiris has just three ingredients - rum, lime, and sugar.  A Mai Tai is a daquiris that uses orgeat (sweet almond syrup) as the sugar and adds orange liqueur.  Period.  End of story.  The drink has suffered some recipe drift over the decades, as well as the indignity of cheap syrups, non-fresh citrus, and gimmicky additions.  Far be it from me to discourage experimentation in cocktail creation, but I hold the same dogmatic opinion here as with the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned.  If you make a different drink, call it something else.  Fight me.

Two things of note with this recipe.  The first is the addition of the lime shell, which is a lime half after the juice has been squeezed out.  I got the idea from tiki expert and bar owner Brian Miller, who maintains that shaking with the lime shell adds additional lime notes from the citrus oils therein.  I tend to agree, and I don't get the bitter notes that some people warn of online.  The other interesting thing is the rum blend.  Tiki bartenders are continually tinkering with blends of different rums for their various cocktails, following the thinking that multiple rums can do things that single rums can't.  I don't have the specific bottles that Brian Miller uses, so my mix is a similar combination of demerara rum, unaged Martinique rhum agricole, pot still Jamaican rum, and lightly aged blended rum.    Interesting, incredibly drinkable, and highly adaptable.  I see why the Mai Tai has become a classic.  Cheers!

Recipe

0.75 oz lime juice

0.75 oz orgeat

0.5 oz curacao
0.5 oz each (El Dorado 5, Rhum JM Blanc, Smith & Cross, Appleton signature)
-Add ingredients, lime shell, 4 ice cubes.  Shake.
-Dump into double old fashioned glass, top with crushed ice.
-garnish with mint sprig.

Saturn

 

Story

While rum is the star player in a great many tiki cocktails, gin is an important supporting player.  The Saturn is a chance for gin to act as the sole spirit while surrounded by other tiki stalwarts like falernum and orgeat.  Passion fruit was a popular tiki cocktail ingredient in the early years of tiki because it was unfamiliar and tasted exotic to most Americans.  As it happens, it also pairs well with both gin and rum.  Its distinct fruity flavor can hold its own against the other strong flavors in a tiki mug to create a balanced drink.  The Saturn is an excellent example of this.  The many flavors in the glass come together to form something altogether different and amazing:  sweet and tart, familiar and novel.  A lesser person would say that the Saturn is out of this world, but there will be none of that here.

Recipe

2.5 oz London dry gin
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz passion fruit syrup
0.5 oz velvet falernum
0.5 oz orgeat
-shake with 1 cup pebble ice.  Dump into double old fashioned glass.  Top with pebble ice.
-optional: garnish with cocktail cherry speared between two citrus peel rings.

Ozymandias

 

Story

Ah, the Vieux Carre – a classic New Orleans cocktail created there in the 1930s.  Boozy, bitter, sweet, and smooth, it features a split base of rye and brandy plus sweet vermouth and Benedictine.  The Ozymandias cocktail is a thoughtful modification of the Vieux Carre.  Bartender Nickle Morris, working at the bar Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, decreased the vermouth a bit to make room for Bigallet China China (pronounced SHEE-na SHEE-na).  This complex amaro is made in France by macerating the peels of Valencia and bitter oranges in neutral spirit before distillation, followed by the addition of all the usual amaro suspects – gentian, cinchona bark, clove, and on and on.  The resulting Ozymandias takes the flavor in a subtly different direction.  It’s still boozy, bitter, and sweet, but there’s an additional citrus angle there that makes a difference.  Like its cousin, this cocktail can be served up or over a rock of ice.  I prefer the latter so the drink can open up over time.  
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! 

Recipe

0.75 oz Rittenhouse Rye
0.75 oz brandy or cognac
0.5 oz Bigallet China China
0.5 oz Benedictine
0.5 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1 dash Bittermens Elemakule Tiki Bitters

-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into old fashioned glass over large ice cube or into a coupe or Nick & Nora.  Express lemon twist over drink and use as a garnish.

Elusive Dreams

 

Story

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana is an historic hotel that opened in 1930.  Its flagship cocktail, the Hotel Nacional Special, was created around the same time.  It’s a sophisticated daiquiris variant made with rum, pineapple, lime, and apricot liqueur.  The Elusive Dreams modifies the classic template by replacing the apricot with banana liqueur and amping up the deep pineapple flavor by splitting the rum (half pineapple-infused rum, half unaged rum).  The result is a remarkably smooth drink that gives the fruit flavors center stage without tasting strongly like any of them.  The cinnamon hovers way in the background as it does in a lot of tiki drinks, working magic with the rum almost at the edge of awareness.  Be sure to shake this cocktail for a full 30 seconds to aerate it and give it that silky texture.  I’m glad I have to make these each by hand, because if I could just ask someone to bring me one I would do so multiple times.  

Recipe

1 oz Planteray Stiggins’ Fancy pineapple rum
1 oz blended unaged rum (Planteray 3 Stars) or white rum
1 oz pineapple juice
0.75 oz lime juice
0.75 oz cinnamon syrup
0.5 oz banana liqueur  (Giffard Banane du Bresil)
-Shake ingredients with 3-4 medium ice cubes for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe.

Iron Ranger

Story

One of the creators of tiki cocktail culture back in the 1930’s was Victor Bergeron, aka Trader Vic.  The other was Donn Beach (born Ernest Raymond Gantt), whose “Don the Beachcomber” bars were the original establishments from which Trader Vic shamelessly borrowed ideas.  Unlike Vic, who published a dozen recipe books, Beach was famously secretive about his recipes.  He only wrote them down in coded form, meaning they had to be reconstructed through meticulous research by a hero named Jeff Berry.  Berry published the first of his famous recipe books in 1998, helping to inspire the tiki renaissance in the early 21^st century.  The Iron Ranger is a combination of a traditional Beachcomber framework with a whiskey base, which was a favorite trick of Trader Vic’s.  The result is deliciously juicy and drinkable like a classic tiki cocktail, but just when you expect the rum to make an appearance, you get the smoothness of bourbon.  The tartness of the citrus and falernum keep the cocktail from being overly sweet.  I enjoy the aroma of freshly grated cinnamon as a garnish, but you’ll be fine if you omit it.  Cheers!  

Recipe

2 oz bourbon
1 oz pineapple juice
0.75 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz John D Taylor’s velvet falernum
0.5 oz simple syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters

-Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker with a handful of pebble or crushed ice.  Shake until it’s mostly melted.
-Dump everything into a pint glass or tiki mug.  Fill the remainder of the glass with additional pebble or crushed ice.
-Optional garnishes: freshly grated cinnamon, mint bouquet, cinnamon stick. Serve with a straw.

Fog Cutter

 

Story

The Fog Cutter is a classic tiki cocktail recipe from Victor Bergeron, aka Trader Vic.  As one of the two entrepreneurs who pioneered the concept of the tiki bar in the late 1930’s, Vic invented some of the original cocktails that bartenders continue to imitate and refine today.  The Fog Cutter combines Trader Vic’s signature template (rum, orgeat, lemon, orange) with another one of his favorite tools – a blend of multiple base spirits.  This drink manages the same trick that you find in a well-made Long Island Iced Tea:  a bunch of ingredients that don’t seem to match up and a final flavor that doesn’t seem like any of them. This version of the Fog Cutter is from Chicago bartender Paul McGee, who felt that orange juice made the drink flabby and unfocused.  He brought in the orange flavor with dry curacao instead.  The result is a version of the drink that's flavorful and refreshing, with hints of tart citrus and echoes of rum.  Just the thing as the days grow warmer.  Cheers!  

Recipe

1 oz aged Martinique-style rhum
0.5 oz cognac
0.5 oz London dry gin (Ford’s)
1 oz lemon juice
0.75 oz orgeat
0.5 oz dry curacao
0.5 oz amontillado sherry

-Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker with a cup of pebble or crushed ice.  Shake 5-10 seconds.
-Dump everything into a pint glass or tiki mug.  Fill the remainder of the glass with additional pebble or crushed ice.
-Optional garnishes: orange peel, mint bouquet. Serve with a straw.

Toasted Old Fashioned Godfather

 

Story

The Godfather is a simple mix of blended Scotch whisky and amaretto liqueur served over ice.  It became widespread in the 1970s after the movie The Godfather exploded in popularity, likely due to a marketing effort by the makers of amaretto.  Unfortunately, it contains blended Scotch, which just isn’t for me.  Fortunately, someone saved the day by inventing this alternative. Stepping back to the 1800s, the classic Whiskey Cocktail was whiskey, sugar, bitters and water – what we call an Old Fashioned today.  An “improved whiskey cocktail” added a liqueur to expand the flavor of the classic whiskey cocktail, giving us drinks like the Godfather.  At some point someone switched spirits to create the Toasted Old Fashioned Godfather, where the split rye/bourbon base takes the place of the blended Scotch.  The result is a delightfully smooth and rich sipper with a touch of almond.  There aren’t scores of competing flavors here, and that purity is part of its strength.  Not everything needs to be complicated.

Recipe

1 oz rye (Rittenhouse)
1 oz bourbon
0.5 oz amaretto liqueur
2 dashes Angostura bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into old fashioned glass over ice.

-optional: garnish with toasted almonds (really only for looks, the flavor is unchanged)

Division Bell

 

Story

The Last Word is an equal-parts drink of gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice that dates back to 1915.  After many years out of memory and time, it was unearthed in the early 2000s in the Seattle bar scene.  Like many great cocktails, it inspired a lot of variants, including the Paper Plane (bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino, lemon juice) and the Naked & Famous (mezcal, Aperol, yellow Chartreuse, lime juice).  The Division Bell is similar to the latter, but the ingredient substitution and rebalancing make it distinct.  The result is super interesting.  The mezcal flavor is definitely there, but the other ingredients add complexity and variation.  It’s got a balance of sweet, savory, and tart that make it memorable.  Cheers!

Recipe

1 oz mezcal (Del Maguey Vida)
0.75 oz Aperol
0.25 oz maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)
0.75 oz lime juice
Grapefruit twist
-Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Express grapefruit twist and discard.

District B-13

 

Story

I’m obviously a fan of the Death & Co. family of bars and I’ve learned a lot from their trio of cocktail books.  The third book in the series, Welcome Home, has a well-deserved reputation for talking a lot about becoming a better home bartender and then listing a set of recipes with really obscure ingredients.  This cocktail is one of the few that I could make without a special trip to the store.  Luckily, it’s terrific.  The drink is the sort that creates a flavor journey: there’s a citrus and grape scent, followed by the smooth cognac.  The vermouth and the nutty sherry then get into a bit of a tug-of-war for dominance only to have Cynar waltz in at the end and trounce them both.  The Luxardo adds interesting little grace notes throughout.  The resulting cocktail is bitter and boozy, not too sweet, and definitely worth savoring.

Recipe

2 oz cognac
0.75 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
0.5 oz oloroso sherry
0.25 oz Cynar
1 teaspoon Luxardo maraschino liqueur
-stir ingredients with ice in a mixing glass
-strain into chilled coupe or Nick & Nora.  Express lemon twist and discard.

Rock and a Hard Place

 

Story

You can always tell which cocktail book I happen to be reading.  Currently it’s the NoMad Cocktail Book by Leo Robitschek, which won the James Beard Book Award in 2020 in the Beverage With Recipes category.  So it’s good, is what I’m saying.  This drink was created by Alisa Bobcat Rabovsky, a former bartender at NoMad who now does event planning for a participatory art group. Seems like a cool person, is what I’m also saying.  The Rock and a Hard Place is a variation on a Perfect Manhattan (“perfect” meaning that it’s got equal parts sweet and dry vermouth).  Here that’s augmented by the caramelized sugar and citrus notes of Amaro Nonino and the nutty combination of walnut liqueur and walnut bitters.  The walnut comes through clearly but doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the flavors, and the edges of the vermouth are rounded off.  It’s not highly complex, but there are some terrific subtleties to be found here.  

Recipe

1.5 oz rye whiskey (Rittenhouse)
0.5 oz Dolin dry vermouth
0.5 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
0.5 oz Amaro Nonino
1 teaspoon Nux Alpina Walnut Liqueur
2 dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut bitters
-stir ingredients with ice in a mixing glass. Strain into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass.  No garnish.

Shockingly Bright Restorative (SBR)

 

Story

I first encountered this cocktail at Pubkey, a little bar in Washington DC just a few blocks northwest of the Capitol building.  It’s a slight variation on a drink called the Glo-Sour, which was created by cocktail alchemist Dave Arnold as a way to showcase turmeric-infused gin. In his book Liquid Intelligence, Arnold describes a rapid pressurized infusion method he invented that uses a stainless steel cream whipper to make infusions in minutes.  I don’t have space to describe it here, but a quick search of “Dave Arnold turmeric infusion” tells the story.  This version of the drink adds complexity by including green chartreuse.  At the bar they float it on top of the drink, but directly mixing it in before shaking creates an almost identical result.  The cocktail is easy to identify as a sour (gin, citrus, simple syrup), but with a very subtle earthy undertone and a halo of spice from the chartreuse.  The turmeric gin almost glows in this drink, so others will take notice.  The saline is a Dave Arnold calling card – it punches up the flavors just a touch without being noticeably salty.  Enjoy this one very cold.  Cheers!

Recipe

2 oz turmeric-infused London Dry gin

0.75 oz lime juice

0.75 oz simple syrup

0.25 oz green chartreuse

3 drops 4:1 saline solution or a pinch of salt

2 dashes orange bitters

-Shake ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe.  No garnish.

Doyers Street

 

Story

There are a bunch of Manhattan variants named for the boroughs of New York City.  The Brooklyn is a classic one of these that combines rye whiskey and dry vermouth with an amaro and Maraschino liqueur.  The Doyers Street is a Brooklyn variation that uses a bitter orange amaro (Bigallet China China) and elderflower liqueur to create a drink that’s simultaneously familiar and beguiling.  There are notes of bitter orange and clove, caramel, grapefruit, and spice.  It was invented by Leo Robitschek, a James Beard award-winning bartender at the NoMad and other excellent New York bars.  This immediately became one of my favorite Manhattan variations.  It’s served on a rock of ice to temper its spiciness over time, but could just as easily be enjoyed up with a garnish.  Either way, I think it’s terrific.  Cheers!

Recipe

1.5 oz rye whiskey (Rittenhouse)
0.75 oz Dolin dry vermouth
0.5 oz Bigallet China China amer liqueur
0.25 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
2 dashes Angostura bitters
-stir ingredients with ice in a mixing glass
-strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube.  No garnish.

1903

 

Story

We’ve got some experience in the Club with split-base cocktails, so it’s no surprise to see both cognac and apple brandy here.  But a split vermouth as well?  What is happening??  The 1903 cocktail was created by Death & Co veteran Jessica Gonzalez while she was the head bartender at the famous NoMad bar in New York (the bar is sadly now closed, another victim of the pandemic).  The NoMad bar was located in the fabulous-sounding NoMad hotel, a beautiful Beaux-Arts-style building built in (surprise!) 1903.  The cocktail is of course a Manhattan variation (base spirit plus sweet vermouth, served up).  As such, it’s a boozy drink that should be served cold and consumed before it warms up.  Cocchi Americano is technically an aromatized wine rather than a vermouth because it’s flavored with bitter quinine, but it’s used interchangeably with vermouth, most notably in a version of James Bond’s Vesper Martini (replacing Kina Lilet, which is no longer available).  The 1903 has notes of apple, grapefruit, apricot, and some other flavors that make it interesting to sort out.  My notes helpfully say, “I like it a lot.”  Cheers!

Recipe

1 oz cognac
1 oz Laird’s Bottled in Bond Apple Brandy
0.75 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
0.75 oz Cocchi Americano
2 dashes grapefruit bitters
-Stir ingredients with ice.  Strain into chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass.  No garnish.