Category: Recipe

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Cell 2187 (Ankle Breaker)

Happy May the Fourth: Star Wars Day.

The vessel is the Death Star. The drink is a modified version of the Ankle Breaker. Put them together and it is Cell 2187, the cell that Princess Leia was jailed in.

The original recipe calls for a 151 Puerto Rican rum. I do have some Don Q 151 but it is buried in the back of my liquor cabinet and I thought maybe switching it up would be an improvement. Indeed, replacing that potent rum with two others proved to be even better than the original. Much more flavorful with rums that can stand up to all that powerful Cherry Heering liqueur.

Cell 2187 (Ankle Breaker)
1½ oz Lemon Juice
¾ oz Simple Syrup
1½ oz Cherry Heering
1 oz Plantation OFTD Rum
½ oz Wray & Nephew Overproof Jamaica Rum
Shake with ice. Add “dark side of the Force” light-up cube.

The Geeki Tiki Death Star is a pretty nice mug.

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Caipirinha

I finally got around to purchasing a bottle of Cachaça, the cane spirit from Brazil. I’ve had good experiences with Novo Fogo Silver Cachaça and the price was reasonable so that’s what I went with. Not grassy at all, the savory flavors of this cane spirit are quite pleasant.

I decided to make a Caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil. This cocktail is similar to a Daiquiri or Ti Punch in that it contains a cane spirit, lime, and sugar.

Caipirinha
2 sugar cubes
1 Small Lime, cut into quarters
2 oz Cachaça
Place lime wedges and sugar into old fashioned glass and muddle gently. Add Cachaça and crushed ice, then stir until chilled and the sugar is dissolved.

This is quite nice and more to my taste than the formula for a Ti Punch that has a smaller ratio of lime/sugar (if you prefer Martinique Rhum, your opinion may differ). I can see why the Caipirinha is popular.

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Ronrico Mai-Tai (1962)

This is from a print-ad circa 1962 and is noteworthy for a few reasons.

Firstly, it is a very early printed Mai Tai recipe, substantially similar to others from the mid-late 1950s. This was the original “Hawaiian Mai Tai” style that featured a split base of light rum paired with a flavorful dark Jamaica rum. I can assure you the Myers’s of that era was quite flavorful, and issued at robust 97 proof! A “jigger” in this time period was usually 1 oz.

As is typical of these early Hawaiian Mai Tais, the sweeteners were used in equal portions. Dash in this case being equal to ¼ oz. While the cocktail pictured does seem to be somewhat reminiscent of a fruit salad, it is also noteworthy that there’s no pineapple or orange juice. Remember, the Hawaiian Mai Tai was not born with pineapple juice.

1 jigger Ronrico White
1 jigger Myers’s Jamaica Rum
Juice of One Lime
1 dash Orgeat
1 dash Simple Syrup
1 dash Orange Curacao

I love the line “Don’t waste your time making it”. The person writing the copy also misspelled “Myers” rum, though they surely weren’t the first and far into the future people will still be misspelling it.

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Mai Tai Planters Punch

Felt like making it a little extra spicy tonight, so did a riff between two favorites. This was quite nice, without overpowering sweetness or spice.

1½ oz Lemon Juice
1 oz Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Concentrate Syrup
⅓ oz Don’s Spices #2 (50/50 Vanilla Syrup/Pimento Dram)
3 oz Jamaican Rum Blend (courtesy Andy from @easytikidrinks)
4 dashes Angostura Bitters

I love this Trader Vic’s Pilsner glass for tall drinks like this. Looks great with the classic logo treatment. We’ll see if the Mai Tai Planters Punch ever gets famous.

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National Cocktail Day Cocktail

I’ve been mostly on the wagon for the past two weeks after coming back from Bakersfield with a pretty bad flu. But felt well enough to try a few things tonight. The Blue Curacao was being used for a comparison test we’ll cover in the upcoming days.

But I had a little bit left over, so made myself a quick and dirty unmeasured cocktail. And you know it ain’t too shabby.

National Cocktail Day Cocktail
2 glugs of Giffard Blue Curacao
2 glugs of Probitas Rum
1 scant pour of Lemon Juice
2 Dashes Orange Bitters
Stir with ice

The orange bitters actually did improve this a little and there’s nothing wrong with a half-half pour of my favorite Blue Curacao and my favorite “white” rum.

Happy National Cocktail Day!

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Dublin Sour

This is an Irish Whiskey variant of the Eastern Sour. Like the Mai Tai recipe variants we discussed a couple weeks ago, Trader Vic’s created the Sour template and then substitutes different types of spirits to give the cocktail a new name, often related to a new Trader Vic’s location.

  • Eastern Sour: Bourbon
  • London Sour: Scotch
  • Munich Sour: German Brandy (sometimes Cognac)
  • Toronto Sour: Canadian Whisky
  • Tokyo Sour: Japanese Whisky? Recipes are unclear.
  • Jalisco Sour: Tequila

Dublin Sour Recipe from Trader Vic’s (2023)
2 oz. Irish Whiskey
Squeeze ¼ Fresh cut Lemon
Squeeze ¼ Fresh cut Orange
(save spent shells)
1 oz. Lemon Juice
1 oz. Orange Juice
Dash (¼ oz) Orgeat
Dash Rock Candy Syrup
Shake with cracked ice and pour in your new St. Patrick’s Day Glass and top with spent shells for garnish.

Sharp-eyed readers will note this recipe differs from the classic recipe from the 1972 Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide. That book called for the “juice of half an orange and half a lemon.” That basically means 2½ oz of orange juice and just about 1½ oz of lemon juice. Trader Vic’s says they use the smaller amount because an entire half orange and half lemon are too large for the glass.

Using Jameson, the whiskey is really lost in this cocktail, even with just the 1½ oz of OJ I squeezed from my small-ish orange. Bolder spirits such as Scotch or Bourbon are a better match for all that juice, and I also recommend upping the Orgeat to ½ oz.

In any case, raise a Dublin Sour on Saint Patrick’s Day and toast:
“A good friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have”

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Nuclear Daiquiri

There were some discussions of this cocktail online this week and so I took at run at it. I tweaked the original recipe by lowering the Green Chartreuse a little and definitely going for a heavy pour of John D. Taylor Falernnum that is not as bold as the Falernum syrup used in the original version of the cocktail.

¾ oz Lime Juice
¾ oz John D. Taylor Falernum (heavy pour)
½ oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Wray & Nephew Overproof Jamaica Rum
Shake with ice cubes and strain

This was just right for me. Enough of the Chartreuse to taste, but not enough to overwhelm. But it works very nicely with the bold Wray & Nephew rum.