Aloha! Culled this one from the indispensable Grog Log. For god sakes, if you don’t have one, go get one of your own! Or better yet pick up the Triple Play Pack and get all three of Berry’s excellent books in one go.

This is a super tasty one that relies on passion fruit syrup, of which order into my home country from the US of A – specifically, the fine folks at Trader Vics. Recently, one of the local Tiki shops here in Vancouver started carrying the Trader Vics mixes (which is awesome, because shipping a bunch of filled glass bottles? Not so cheap) but the one thing they DON’T carry (because it’s apparently hard to come by) is the Trader Vics Passion Fruit syrup, which is absolutely the bees knees. For those of you in the US, you can get it off their website (though the “mail order” store has been down for a while… which is why I’m down to my last bottle of Passion Fruit syrup!) but for us shlubs up north, we pay dearly for shipping. While we do pay five times what Americans do for shipping, our consolation prize is that our government could give a rats ass about Fidel Castro’s red tendencies – and as such, Cuban rum (some of the best in the world) is freely available in our local liquor stores. Win some, lose some, I guess.

Anyhow, back to my Passion Fruit syrup and my dismal “half bottle” supply; One would think that when faced with a possible shortage of a certain item, you’d be inclined to keep it for a special occasion; but it’s Tuesday, and I’m thirsy, so that’s a special enough occasion enough for me.

So here we go: The “Chief Lapu Lapu”. According to Beachbum Barry, Lapu Lapu is the fella who capped Magellan when he and his Spanish buddies decided to tour the Philippines in 1521. So what sort of prize do you end up with when you snuff out one of the shining lights of a nation? You get a cocktail named after you, apparently!

Chief Lapu Lapu

3 ounces of orange juice
3 ounces of sweet and sour
1 ounce of passion fruit syrup (the Trader Vics stuff is the best)
1 1/2 ounce of light rum
1 1/2 ounce of dark rum

Shake over ice, then decant into a large snifter partly filled with fresh ice. Hoisting one and then chasing after a local cartographer with a cutlass is NOT recommended.

Cheers!

JJ.

Wow, been a long time. “Cocktail of the day”. Yeah. How about “cocktail of the quarter”. Sorry about that, guys.
Been busy, but found myself behind a bar last Friday night pouring drinks for some work friends. I had a list of available cocktails but this one was a bit of a crowd pleaser: I brought in my Trader Vics “Rum Keg Mug” and had a cocktail on the menu that was so big that four people had to share it! I ended up washing the Keg by hand three times over the night so I could re-serve the cocktail again and again. It’s a pretty neat sight to see four co-workers gathered around a big porcelan keg sipping away at a coconutty cocktail.

I snagged this recipe from the Grog Log, which is a must-have cocktail book. But if you’re here, you’ve probably already got one. If you don’t, though, get one.

The Coconaut

Served in a big-ass bowl and shared by three or four peeps.

8 ounces of coconus creme (Lopez is great, the Trader Vics version is excellent too)
2 ounces of fresh lime juice
7 ounces of dark jamacian rum

put all the goodies into a blender, fill it up with ice, and beat the hell out of it until it’s rummy coconutty slush. Decant into mugs, or if you’re trying to forge new friendships, pour the entire thing into a big bowl, hand out some straws, and grab the camera.

dee-licious!

Sorry for the long hiatus, folks. I’ll try to keep this thing updated. The past few months have been pretty freakin’ busy. My apologies!

Cheers,

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.

Wow, ok, the idea of a “cocktail every day” kind of falls by the wayside when things get busy! So, my apologies. Let me make it up to ya’ll with a bright and tasty summertime cocktail!

Here’s one that a friend of mine fell in love with on a recent visit to Bermuda; he didn’t did get the recipe from the bartender but did come back demanding I find out how it’s made. One of my trusty cocktail books, Caribbean Cocktails, describes it as this:

The Yellowbird

Fresh squeezed juice of one orange
Fresh squeezed juice of half a lemon
1 ounce Tia Maria
1 ounce Dark Rum
1/4 ounce of Passion Fruit Syrup

Shake over ice, decant into a Collins or rocks glass filled with fresh ice. Orance slice for garnish.

I’m a little wary of recipes that call for “the juice of X”; I prefer exact measurements. What if it’s a big orange? A small lemon? Meh. Gimmie specifics. You’d never hear Trader Vic say “throw in some lime juice”. Great drinks follow exacting specifications! Cocktails are like alchemy; you need the exact amound of X and Y to create Z. That being said, I tried this one with an “average” sized orange and lemon and it worked out pretty good… Anyone else have a alternate recipe? The Yellowbird may be an elusive fowl to pin down. Like the unicorn, I have the feeling it’s a fabled creature that takes many forms.

I will continue my hunt.