My last post was blaming poor Doctor Tiki for coming up with a couple of misguided shooters. Well, this time he gets some praise instead – Doctor Tiki is the brain behind the London Fogcutter.

See, the Doctor (like all of us on Tiki Bar TV) enjoy a nice glass of the Champers. I say we ditch the stigma of Champagne being the “special fancy” drink that never gets consumed – break that fucker out of the cabinet and have it because it’s Tuesday! Crack open a bottle of the bubbly because you finished another week at work without getting fired!

Drink it anytime! Drink it in excess! Much like I did, during this one wedding? The bartenders just kept handing me bottles. I didn’t even bother with a glass. By the end of the night (and after some six bottles) I must admit that Johnny Johnny was a little…. ruffled.

AAANYHOW,there’s loads of great brands of Champs from OUTSIDE of France (technically it’s not “champagne”, but who gives a rats ass – I’m not about to call every bottle bubbly “sparking wine beverage”, because that sounds silly). Try a few of the brands local to you and you might be pleasantly surprised.

ANYHOW – We at Tiki Bar like champers. THE PROBLEM IS, it’s not all that efficient. You can’t really “blast” through it like your standard cocktail. It took six bottles to get my shirt untucked. Who has that much time?

So the good doctor “augmented” the champers with a double shot of Gin, and shaved the edge off the drink with a shot of lime juice. it’s champage for those of you who have somewhere to go and not much time to get there.
Brilliant.

The London Fogcutter

2 ounces of Gin
1 ounce of fresh lime juice
6 ounces of Champagne or “Champagne substitute”

Serve over ice, because those champagne flutes are for beret wearing noodle-norks in black turtlenecks ogling abstract prints at tiny art shows. Mug me, baby.

Tip tip horrah,

JJ.

Ok. First, I’m going to come right out in the open and get this over with.

I DID NOT MAKE THESE DRINKS.

Stop it with the mail. Seriously. Point the blame toward the guy with the white lab coat. HE DID IT. I wasn’t around when we shot this episode, so the good Doctor just started randomly pulling bottles out of whatever shelf he found himself around and created these… things. Grenadine and CHAMBORD? Good grief.

And the measurements? They don’t add up to a shot, or even two. I guess they just added some sort of “units” in a shaker?

For posterity, I’ll post these recipes here, but don’t come crying to me if you wake up in the morning with a sugar loaded hangover and no memory of the previous evening. Please see the man in the WHITE LAB COAT. Just down the hall, first door on your left.

The Red Orchid

1 “unit” of dark rum
1 “unit” of Chambord
dash of grenadine
dash of cranberry juice

The Banana Slam

1 “unit” of gold rum
1 “unit” of banana liquer
1/2 a “unit” of orange juice
1/4 a “unit” of sour mix

Get yourself one of these, round up a friend, and get to work. Please, by all means, feel free to modify the above recipes!

Cheers,
JJ.

 

So when we started the series, our first few drinks didn’t have a whole lot of rum in them. And all good Tiki fans know – Rum is the lifeblood of Tiki. It’s the beginning, middle and end of Tiki drinks. Rum, my friends, is where it is AT.

However, when we shoot episodes – well, we’d have a drink first. We’d generally drink the best stuff we had. Then when we were good and loosened up, we’d come up with an idea.

By then, we’d have drunk all the rum. So we did stuff like “The Hullabaloo”, which, I gotta be honest, isn’t all that Tiki.

So after episode three, a select few of the Tiki purists out there were… displeased. I wandered across one of the threads at tikiroom.com where one poster, a regular named “Trader Woody”, was sad we hadn’t come up with more rum drink as rum was his favorite. In fact, Trader Woody had recently submitted a cocktail of his own design (the Trader Woody) to Tikiroom’s online “create a drink” contest and had won second place.

So, to win back the hearts and minds of rum loving Tiki heads across the ‘net, we decided to use Woody’s recipe, and even gave him a big hearty “cheers” at the end. I’ve got a soft spot for this episode; Woody saw the episode, posted a glowingly thrilled response, and probably went about the rest of his day with a big smile on his face.

And you know what? Making people smile? Man, do we like to do that. We like it A LOT.

Trader Woody’s Drink

2 ounces Dark Rum
1 ounce Amaretto
1 ounce Pineapple Juice
1 ounce Orange Juice
couple splashes of Lime juice

Mix the ingredients over ice; load up a fresh glass with crushed ice. Pour the mixed goodness over the crushed ice. Enjoy the rummy goodness.

BOY the cupboards were bare when we came up with this one. I think it’s the simplest cocktail we’ve ever done – three ingredients!

Well, besides “Interlude”. That recipe called for a bottle of Screech and a healthy portion of laughing lettuce.

Hullaballoo

2 ounces Brandy
2 ounces Scotch
6 ounces fresh lemonade

Science!

Doctor Tiki gets full credit for this one. It’s a prescription pad original.

The Trap Door

1 ounce Gin
1 ounce Spiced Rum
Juice of 1/2 a lime
2 oz fresh orange juice
1 oz soda water

Madly combine ingredients. If there’s no more room for Soda, use to your own better discretion. Drink and disappear.

We did this one for our second episode and YES, I KNOW. This is NOT the classic recipe. It’s not even close. It was episode two. I mean, come on. Bourbon? See, we had Gin, Bourbon, a great looking mug, and a convenience store downstairs. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I swear, the ghost of Trader Vic appeared later that night when I was sleeping, and he tried to kill me with a bar spoon.
Aaaanyhow!

Here’s the Tiki Bar TV Version of this classic. Which is… you know, like our show. A little screwy.

The Suffering Bastard

1 1/2 ounces Gin
1/2 ounce Bourbon
3 ounces of Ginger Ale
the juice of 1/2 a lime

Pour ingredients into a shaker, toss in some ice, swirl around with the cap off and then decant the entire thing back into your mug (which is called “rolling”, by the way). Some university kid sent me an email cursing me and my “stupid drink” because he put the cap on his shaker, and shook the shit out of it – and the thing exploded all over the dame he was trying to impress. Whoops.
So, you know, DON’T shake carbonated drinks. That’s today’s hot tip. You can have that one for free.

Heya! We’re starting to move the archives over from Tiki Bar TV’s main site to here – so TikiJohnny will be serving as the main archive for all the cocktails featured on our episodes. Search by cocktail, ingredient, what have you.

Starting from the first episode, I’m going to quickly play catchup. So here we go!

We opened our Tiki series with a tequila based cocktail. ‘Cause we’re crazy like that. Yeah, thanks for all the “friendly fan mail”, Tiki afficinados. Please take a moment to notice the many Rum based cocktails that soon followed!

To be honest, the classic Marg is still one of my all-time favorite cocktails. It’s refreshing, energizing, and gets you good and loopy. Jimmy’s recipe is still my all time favorite – god’s honest truth, it’s taped to the inside of my kitchen cabinet on an index card, a subtile reminder that while I may have opened the door for a coffee mug, it’s never too early to mix me up a marg.

Oh, and if you haven’t watched episode one yet? Please don’t. Even now, when I watch that one, it’s like the podcasting equivalent of looking at my 8th grade yearbook photo.

Jimmy Buffett’s Classic Margarita

Fill shaker with Ice
Squeeze the juice of two fresh lime wedges into the shaker.
2 oz gold Tequila
1/2 oz white Tequila
1 1/4 oz lime cordial
1/2 oz Triple Sec
a splash of Cointreau

Shake, rim the outside of your glass with a lime peel, salt; squeeze in the juice of one final lime wedge, pour yourself some magic.