Recipe
- 1oz Jamaican rum (I used Smith&Cross)
- 1oz aged rum (I used El Dorado 15)
- .75oz fresh grapefruit juice
- .75oz lime juice
- .5oz coffee liqueur (Mr. Black)
- .5oz Giffard banana liqueur
- 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
- (optional) Additional simple syrup to taste
Shake all ingredients very well with crushed ice (or better yet, stick it in a high speed blender for a couple seconds). Pour everything into a glass and fill with extra crushed ice. Grate some fresh nutmeg over top, and garnish with some fresh mint and coffee beans.
About
While coffee liqueur usually conjures up thoughts of White Russians, creamy sweet drinks, or even more sophisticated pairings in boozy stirred drinks (Coffee Manhattans? Coffee Negronis?), I’m here to encourage you to add it to your tiki arsenal.
The use of coffee as a tiki ingredient actually dates back to the original era of “exotic drinks” in the mid 20th century, when Donn Beach (a real person and the founder of what we now refer to as “tiki”) was whippin’ up drinks that captured the hearts of patrons at his Don the Beachcomber bar in Los Angeles.
The drinks from Donn’s day really focused on flavor complexity, combining potent exotic rums with sour with sweet and adding in spice and intrigue in the form of ingredients like Angostura bitters, allspice liqueur, nutmeg, cinnamon, absinthe/anise, and also coffee. The alluring bitter and warm tones of coffee are the perfect addition for that extra unexpected layer of depth to your exotic libations (just make sure you’re using a quality coffee liqueur and not Kahlua).