Pulling this drink out of the old reliable Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log, in pursuit of something in which to give the new falernum a spin — and given my purpose, could there be a more perfect name than the “Test Pilot”?

I first tried this last week, and immediately became very fond of it. The Bum credits the recipe to Don the Beachcomber, circa 1941, and as he wrote elsewhere in the book, one of Don’s secret ingredients was the combination of Angostura and Pernod. I can see why — both are used in minute doses, so you don’t actually taste their flavor up front, but Angostura does its deep, spicy thing in the glass while the Pernod takes its mildly sweet anise-ey flavor and spreads it out to the far corners of the drink, so you don’t actually taste anise, but you know something is in there that’s rounding the edges of all the other flavors.

I’d go even further and say that Don’s use of this bitters-pastis one-two punch is the missing link between the old-school classic cocktails of the Gilded Age and beyond, and the mid-century Tiki movement that Don helped launch. Bitters, of course, are one of four ingredients in the original cocktail as it was defined, and many of the old classics were given a little vavoom and a touch of wahoo with a few drops of absinthe (witness: the Third Degree, basically an old-time dry martini with a dash of absinthe; and the McKinley’s Delight, a rye Manhattan with a little cherry brandy and a dab of the old monster).

The Test Pilot is an excellent primer to tiki drinks. Like any good cocktail, it doesn’t taste like any of its constituent parts, but rather it’s a carefully balanced amalgam of all the different ingredients. I’d serve this to anyone who looked down their nose at tiki drinks, as proof that this style of libation can be balanced and layered, and can have a gentle sweetness that is in perfect accordance with the tartness from the citrus.

For this version, I’ve used Herbsaint in place of Pernod (I was looking for a reason to crack that bottle I brought back from New Orleans, plus the good Grog Log informs us that Herbsaint enjoys a certain degree of historical accuracy), and I’ve used Appleton V/X for the dark Jamaican rum (perhaps not exactly what was intended, but Lemon Hart Jamaican is nowhere to be found around here, and Myers just disappoints me), and slightly more flavorful Cruzan white in place of the light Puerto Rican rum. Also, I lacked a wooden oyster fork — really, there’s such a thing? — so I just tossed the garnish on top.

For blending, I decided to also use an immersion blender in place of one of the upright canister types — partially for noise & hassle-of-cleaning reasons, but also because the stick blender gives me a little more control, so I can pulse it a few times with crushed ice over five seconds or so, and have a drink that’s mixed, but without the consistency of a slushy.

Test Pilot

• 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce Falernum
• 3 teaspoons Cointreau
• dash Angostura bitters
• 1/8 teaspoon Pernod
• 3/4 ounce light Puerto Rican rum
• 1 1/2 ounces dark Jamaican rum

Blend with 1 cup crushed ice for 5 seconds, then pour into double old-fashioned glass. Add more crushed ice to fill. Garnish with a wooden oyster fork with maraschino cherry skewered on prongs.

Tags: Drinks, Falernum, Rum, Tiki by Paul
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Six weeks ago or thereabouts, the good Dr. Cocktail set a little corner of the cocktail- & tiki-blogging community a-twitter with an in-depth discussion of the classic Barbados liqueur / sweetener known as falernum. As those who, for some inexplicable reason, have been visiting this blog since last summer may attest, I’ve been on a sporadic quest to create my own falernum, one that will compare in flavor and surpass in freshness the commercial brands that are available (in certain markets, typically not Seattle, which was another impetus behind taking on this mission). After Doc’s story came out, I talked big about having landed the Giant Falernum, then quickly had to scurry into my kitchen to make sure I knew what I was talking about.

I didn’t, but that’s nothing new.

Still, by that point I’d got my hackles up — no falernum’s going to make a monkey outta me! — and I embarked on several more rounds of falernum experimentation before finally arriving at this recipe. I liked it fine, but distrusting my tastebuds, I took some to Tales of the Cocktail where I sought the expert opinions of Dr. Cocktail and Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. The experts succeeded in getting a taste down without gagging, making me damn proud, and Doc even gave me an uneasy smile before offering me $5 to go sit at a different table. I consider that a ringing endorsement.

Now, as I’m kind of tired of messing with the recipe — you have no idea how my family is reacting to a refrigerator full of mason jars with green, funky-smelling liquids in them (and that’s in the spaces between the vermouth bottles) — I thought I’d share it with my readers. Both of you.

Falernum #8

• 6 ounces Wray & Nephew Overproof White Rum
• zest of 9 medium limes, removed with a microplane grater or sharp vegetable peeler, with no traces of white pith
• 40 whole cloves (buy fresh ones — not the cloves that have been in your spice rack since last Christmas)
• 1 1/2 ounce, by weight, peeled, julienned fresh ginger

Combine these ingredients in a jar and seal, letting the mixture soak for 24 hours. Then, strain through moistened cheesecloth, squeezing the solids to extract the last, flavorful bits of liquid.

Add:

• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract*
• 14 ounces cold process 2:1 simple syrup (two parts sugar to one part water, shaken in a jar or bottle WITHOUT HEAT until all the sugar is dissolved)
• 4 1/2 ounces fresh, strained lime juice

Shake it all together and serve.

Is it the be-all and end-all of falernums? Of course not — rather, it’s an easy and cheap way to make a fairly obscure flavoring that’s essential in a class of exotic drinks. As it uses fresh ingredients, it has (to my palate) a better aroma and snappier flavor than the commercial brands I’ve tried. Of course, this freshness also limits its shelf life, so make small batches — this recipe may easily be halved — keep it refrigerated and use it within a month or so. Either chuck the old falernum or, better yet, just have a big swizzle party before your batch expires.

You can also customize this recipe. If you really like the tartness of the Fee’s falernum, for example, you can either add more lime juice (be careful though; the flavor will take over) or you can track down some citric acid crystals and add them to your mix (it won’t be as natural and pure, of course, but what the hell — it’s your drink).

If anyone decides to give this a spin, toss a note my way in the comments — I’m curious to hear what other folks think.

Tags: Falernum, Special Projects, Tiki by Paul
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My birthday was last weekend, and after dropping hints on a daily basis for the past few months, my wife eventually picked up on the idea that an ice crusher would make a good gift. Now, with my spiffy new Metrokane on the counter, I can tackle a whole series of drinks in Grog Log and Intoxica! that I’d mostly had to avoid up to now.

Sure, you can make the drinks with ice cubes–but it’s just not the same, temperature-, flavor- or presentation-wise. And since I have small children — meaning cocktail time is typically an after-bedtime sort of event — the noisy smashing up of ice cubes with a rolling pin or blasting them in the Cuisinart is usually a no-go; plus, neither of those methods really give you a good, consistent result. But it’s summer, the time when mint juleps, mojitos and Prince Parker Swizzles are in order, so an ice crusher came to seem like an indispensable addition to my home bar (as did a couple of bottles of French absinthe, which were my present to myself and were delivered by the flying monkeys from Liqueurs de France too late to enjoy on my birthday, but should be a lot of fun to play around with in the coming months).

My first go round was with a Noa Noa, which Rick recently wrote about and graced with such a beautiful photo that I’m afraid to even venture down that path. Though, it really is a fantastic drink.

The Navy Grog wasn’t far behind — I’d tried this drink using cubes, and had excellent results, but I really wanted to try it the way Don the Beachcomber intended, in a glass filled with crushed ice. I did, however, take the license of slightly altering the recipe (based on the recommendation of Ted Haigh), adding just a dab of pimento dram to the mix.

Now this is what a tiki drink is about — mixtures of juices, sweeteners and different rums that create an entirely new balance of flavors. The crushed ice does its job here, cooling the mix more effectively than cubes or even cracked ice, while stretching out the drink so you don’t wind up tossing it back too quickly — a necessary feature, given the three ounces of rum in the glass.

At some point, of course, I’ll have to go all out and prepare a Navy Grog Ice Cone, per Jeff Berry’s suggestion, though that would require a set of Pilsener glasses … time to start dropping hints for next year.

Navy Grog (from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log)

• 3/4 ounce lime juice
• 3/4 ounce grapefruit juice
• 3/4 ounce honey
• 1 ounce light Puerto Rican rum (I used Cruzan white rum)
• 1 ounce dark Jamaican rum (I used Appleton VX)
• 1 ounce Demerara rum (Lemon Hart)
• 1 ounce chilled club soda
• 1/4 ounce pimento dram (optional)

Heat honey until liquid, then mix with juices. Stir in rums and soda. Pour into double old-fashioned glass filled with crushed ice, or sip drink through ice cone.

Navy Grog Ice Cone: pack ten ounce Pilsener glass with finely shaved ice. Run a hole through center with a chopstick to make a passage for straw. Gently remove cone from glass and freeze overnight.

And, for the record, here’s a Noa Noa:

• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• Tablespoon brown sugar
• dash angostura bitters
• 4 to 6 mint leaves
• 3 ounces Demerara rum

Dissolve sugar in lime juice, then swizzle everything in double old-fashioned glass partially filled with crushed ice. Add more crushed ice to fill. Swizzle again until glass frosts. Garnish with mint sprig and lime shell.

Tags: Drinks, Pimento Dram, Rum, Tiki by Paul
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Another adventure from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log.

I’ve been thinking about this drink for a few days, for three reasons:

1. it was mentioned by a couple of folks during a recent-ish discussion over at Tiki Central about the top 10 tiki drinks;
2. in the past week or so I’ve come into the possession of some Lopez coconut cream (leftover from the Flaming Coffee Grog experiment, and which, when kept in the freezer, takes on a viscosity not unlike that of bathtub caulk); a bottle of Pusser’s rum; a six-pack of six-oz. cans of pineapple juice (convenient for the occasional tiki-drink project); and an orange;
3. I just felt like breaking out the tiki mug.

The Pusser’s website has the history of this drink — can’t say it’s all that exciting (bartender makes drink; another bartender tries drink; a mix-off develops; hangovers ensue; etc. etc. etc.) — but it’s fair to say you can’t make a true painkiller without Pusser’s, a heavy, aggressive (95 proof) navy rum from the British Virgin Islands.

Painkiller

• 4 ounces unsweetened pineapple juice
• 1 ounce orange juice
• 1 ounce Lopez coconut cream
• 2 ounces 95 proof Pusser’s rum
• Powdered cinnamon
• Ground nutmeg

Blend without ice and pour into tall glass or tiki mug filled with crushed ice. Top with a shake of nutmeg and a pinch of cinnamon. Garnish with pineapple stick, orange wheel and cinnamon stick.

Somewhat on the sweet side, as you might expect (it is, after all, a tiki drink), but not cloying. It might pay to cut down the amount of coconut cream by half, and replace it with coconut milk, to reduce the sweetness while keeping the coconut bounce.

And I know what you’re probably thinking — swap the Pusser’s for a less assertive gold rum, 86 the OJ and twiddle with the proportions, and isn’t that a Pina Colada? Well, yeah, pretty much. But before you write off the Painkiller, take a crack at Pusser’s and see how much this mighty sailor’s rum can change your perspective of the old PC.

Tags: Drinks, Rum, Tiki by Paul
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Almost every day for the past 20 years, coffee has been a part of my daily ritual — and by “part of my daily ritual,” I mean the part that keeps me from being a sluggish, surly, cursing-at-passersby subhuman monstrosity. For the past three years or so, cocktails have also played a regular and significant role in that same routine. Yet, I’ve never had much desire to combine the two interests.

When it comes to coffee and spirits, the usual offerings are, I find, depressingly uniform. Most drinks are either of the “fill a mug with coffee, add SPIRIT X and sugar (or, optionally, LIQUEUR Y) and whipped cream” variety, or involve combinations of chilled coffee or coffee liqueur, brandy, creme de cacao and possibly another liqueur or two. Not surprising, given coffee’s post-prandial popularity, but hardly the thing to send your tastebuds a-twitter.

So, after Darcy’s decision to have Mixology Monday II focus on coffee (in all its various manifestations), I had to scratch my head and then go scurrying through the books in search of something interesting.

When “something interesting” is the operative search term in a cocktail quest, I’ve found that one of the best sources is Charles H. Baker, Jr. Traveler, writer and bon vivant, Baker was a magazine journalist for much of the first half of the 20th century, and he also authored two intriguing two-volume sets of food-and-drink recipes, stories and commentary: The Gentleman’s Companion, published in 1939, and The South American Gentleman’s Companion, in 1951.

For coffee, I turned to Baker’s South American drinks volume, and quickly came across this concoction (rendered, as closely as possible, in the 19th-century style use of small caps and extended titles that Baker used in his books) :

Ski Club Andino Boliviano’s HOT COFFEE-GROG, from the Club Chalet at foot of the SKI-TOW, some 18,000 feet above the Sea on Gigantic Mt. Chacaltaya, 40 miles or so outside La Paz, Bolivia.

In a big tall Zombie glass put:

• 2 oz 151-proof Demerara Rum [Ed. note -- JESUS!]
• 1/4 tsp powdered clove
• 1/2 cup strong hot coffee
• 1/2 pony [1/2 oz.] good Jamaica rum
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 cup hot water, not boiling
• 1 big long stick cinnamon bark
• 2 tsp strained honey or brown sugar

Put silver spoon in glass to prevent its cracking, pour in liquids, spice and sweetening. Stir with the cinnamon stick till sweet’s dissolved. [...] A spiral of orange peel is sometimes added. We like that touch.

How is this different from the coffee-spirit-sugar-etc. drinks I maligned above? Well, not a whole lot — except, the addition of spices ramp up the flavor quite a bit without contributing added sweetness, and even the 2 teaspoons of honey or brown sugar is fairly restrained, in terms of the dominant norm for coffee-based drinks.

Baker credits expatriate Brits in Bolivia of coming up with this drink. Why they chose to use 2 oz. of the knee-buckling 151-proof Demerara in this is beyond me (unless, of course, the primary purpose of this drink is to buckle the drinker’s knees in as short a time as possible). Prudently, Baker follows this recipe with a warning:

Naturally ordinary 86-proof rums rate small-beer beside the mule-kick hidden in a pot of 151-proof Demerara, so be careful as you pour or you’ll be shouting “Tim-BERRRRR!” as your guests topple and hit the tiles.

For my take at this grog, I heed Baker’s warning and instead use 1 1/2 oz of the 80-proof Demerara, with 1/2 oz of the full-throttle variety to keep the flavor somewhat true to the original. I also replace the allspice and 1/2 tsp of the brown sugar with 1 tsp of Pimento Dram, as it’s pretty much the same thing — allspice & brown sugar in a Demerara rum base — that’s been allowed to mellow and marry for several months.

But while Baker’s grog is a good fortifying drink to keep in mind the next time it turns frosty, another, somewhat-related beverage suggests a more exotic take on the coffee grog. In search of further coffee-drink-based excitement, I turned to the other name that pops into my head when thinking of interesting drinks: Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. In his Grog Log, Berry gives a recipe (without a source, unfortunately, beyond “circa 1950s”) for a Polynesian relative of Baker’s Coffee Grog.

Flaming Coffee Grog

• 3 teaspoons Lopez coconut cream
• 1/4 oz. Grand Marnier
• Hot black coffee
• Twist of orange peel
• Twist of lemon peel
• 2 whole cloves
• Eight-inch cinnamon stick
• 3/4 oz 151 Demerara rum

Heat and then ignite cloves, peels, Grand Marnier and rum in Pyrex saucepan or blazer pan of chafing dish. Fill skull mug 3/4 full of hot coffee, then stir in coconut cream. Spoon flaming mixture on top. Use cinnamon stick as stirrer.

The benefits of Berry’s coffee grog, as I see it, break down into three points:

• it’s mildly sweet, but not over the top — a big plus for coffee drinks
• the coconut cream takes the flavor in an unexpected, and not unpleasant, direction
• FIRE! Even better, FIRE IN A SKULL MUG! Talk about primal…. [Though, if you're looking for blue flames in the photo, you'll be disappointed -- the rum flared up in the pan and kinda spooked me as I was preparing to ladle it into the mug, so I had to snuff it. Still tasted good, though.]

I found the coffee works well in this tiki environment, and the resulting drink is a far cry from the dull, dessert-tasting coffee cocktails you typically come across.

Thanks to Darcy for coming up with the theme, and for hosting this edition of Mixology Monday. I look forward to reading the wrap-up in the next day or so.

UPCOMING: Mixology Monday III will be upon us in June. The host for this edition will be Rick at Kaiser Penguin, and Rick has chosen mint as his theme for the month.

SAVE THE DATE – Monday, June 5, Mixology Monday III: Mint, hosted at www.kaiserpenguin.com

(And FYI, I’ve been updating the original Mixology Monday post to keep track of past, current & upcoming events, along with the original suggested guidelines, so the permalink should serve as a good reference for new participants.)

Tags: Drinks, Mixology Monday, Pimento Dram, Rum, Tiki by Paul
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