Recipe
- .75oz gold rum (I used El Dorado 15)
- .75oz Wray and Nephew Overproof rum
- .75oz Jamaican gold rum (I used Mezan Jamaica XO)
- .5oz lime juice
- .25oz orgeat
- .25oz passionfruit syrup
- .5oz simple syrup
- Dash of Angostura bitters
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain over fresh crushed ice.
About
Mmm, did someone call for tiki? This is the Luau cocktail, created by Gerry Corcoran from PDT, and has all the things you love about quality tiki drinks. It’s deliciously refreshing, funky, and complex, made using 3 types of full-flavored rums, with your usual suspects of citrus and exotic flavors (passionfruit, almond). I don’t find this one particularly fruity, but rather it has that full-bodied complexity perfectly straddling potent, sweet, and paradise.
Now we can’t avoid talkin about that tiki mug, right? This one is from Frankie’s Tiki Room in Vegas, a fun and local off-the-strip place that’s open 24 hours…check it out on your next Vegas trip!
The era of tiki in the mid-20th century was completely invented from the imagination of Americans looking for tropical escapism. It started in California (not the islands!) and soon made its way across the nation as tiki bars popped up all over. These bars often had elaborate decor and everything was a bit over-the-top, including amazing cocktail-specific specialty drinkware. Each bar had its own unique mugs, usually stamped with the name of the bar on the mug itself. As these tiki bars closed down with the changing tastes of society, these mugs fell into the depth of attics and flea markets. These days, you can still find classic tiki mugs remaining from mid-century tiki bars, and the recent revival of modern tiki bars has brought new mug designs to light. So, my advice: don’t buy ‘generic’ mass-produced tiki mugs, but instead, collect them as you visit unique tiki bars all over the world (many will sell their own specialty mugs), or seek out the relics from the original era!