The essentials for stocking a tiki bar

I spent a few hours creating a spreadsheet of ingredients for tiki drinks based off Beachbum Berry's Remixed with the help of the Grogalizer and then trying to come up with a sweet spot based on how many drinks they were used in. Based on my research, these seem to be the ingredients to buy to make the most drinks with the lowest number of ingredients sorted by how many total drinks the ingredients appear in within the Remixed book (phew!):

Lime Juice
Light Puerto Rican Rum
Orange Juice
Pineapple Juice
Lemon Juice
Angostura Bitters
Dark Jamaican Rum
Sugar Syrup
Passion Fruit Syrup
Gold Puerto Rican Rum
Grapefruit Juice
Orgeat Syrup
Grenadine
Falernum
Demerara Rum
Pernod
Club Soda
151 Demerara Rum
Gin
Orange Curacao
Honey

With these ingredients you can make 38 different drinks, including one drink from the Tiki Central Drink Contest. Take out the Pernod and it's 34, which might be acceptable since Pernod is a bit pricey.

I humbly submit that these 21 ingredients should approximate the minimum to stock a tiki bar for the best return based on number (not price!) of ingredients.

Edit: Here's the list of drinks you can make with these (minus the TC Drink Contest, because that isn't showing up now for some reason):
Boo Loo
Carioca Hawaiian Cocktail
Cobra
Derby Daiquiri
Doctor Funk
Don's Daiquiri
Don's Own Planters
Hawaiian Eye
Hula Hula Cocktail
Hurricane
Iuka's Grogg
Kapu-Kai
Mai Kai Barrel o' Rum
Mai Tai (Hawaiian Style)
Mara-Amu
Navy Grog
Pago Pago
Pieces of Eight
Planter's Punch
Q.B. Cooler
Rainkiller
Royal Hawaiian
Rum Lift
Rum Tropical
Saturn
Shrunken Skull
Sneaky Tiki
Sidewinder's Fang
South Pacific Punch
Stephen Remsberg's Planter's Punch
Surf Room Mai Tai
Sven-Tiki
Tailless Scorpion
Tiger Shark
Tonga Planter's
Trader Vic Grog
Waikikian

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2013-05-02 17:38 ]

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2013-05-02 17:39 ]

Pernod Anise is $30. Pernod absinthe is $70. I always assumed that because it doesn't say absinthe, that it required the liqueur.

Am I wrong about that?

The Beachbum notes in Remixed that Herbsaint is an acceptable substitute for Pernod. It's about $24 (locally).

Cocktails which call for Pernod often require only a few drops or so. (A little goes a long way, so much so that I keep and use a small refillable squeeze bottle in my bar.) You can save some money (and shelf space) if your local liquor store sells the small bottles of Pernod.

I think my 750ml bottle of Pernod will be around for many years at the rate I'm using it. And I make sazeracs, too, which require preparing the glass with a Pernod rinse...

Good work, TikiTacky! Like Wichita says, sub Herbsaint for the Pernod - it only runs about $18 for 750 ml here in town

"I am Lono!" -- Hale Ka'a Tiki Lounge

[ Edited by: arriano 2013-05-02 08:46 ]

Matches my list pretty well.

IMHO, I'd say you could get by with subbing Gold Puerto Rican for Light/Silver, if money's a concern. You also save a few bucks choosing Coruba over Myer's Dark, and its a better rum. No sub for Lemon Hart 151, though!

Thanks for all that work. I'd love to see the spreadsheet. (So now you've got to make it even easier for us and list all the drinks in Beachbum's book(s) that the ingredients will make!)

I'll try and put that up tonight.

Edit: Done.

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2013-05-02 17:46 ]

Guys, any word on the Pernod Absinthe vs Pernod Anise? Which one are the original recopies supposed to use? The books could say specifically Pernod Absinthe, and I just don't have them handy to see.

I only have the mobile app handy, as I'm at work, but if I remember correctly from the books, it just says Pernod.
The Pernod Absinthe and the Pernod Anise liqueur taste VERY similar. I actually prefer the taste of the Pernod Absinthe over the Herbsaint. I find it to be less syrupy.

The Beachbum is talking about the Anise, not the Absinthe.

On 2013-05-02 12:24, Hale Tiki wrote:
Guys, any word on the Pernod Absinthe vs Pernod Anise? Which one are the original recopies supposed to use? The books could say specifically Pernod Absinthe, and I just don't have them handy to see.

Absinthe was banned in the U.S. from 1915 to 2007. So it's doubtful any U.S. bar was using it during that time period.

Huzzah! Okay, so, for those of you out there worried about the prohibitive cost of the Absinthe, the Pernod is $25-$30 from Hi-Time, Binny's, or your local liquor store!

For what it's worth, adding Absinthe to this list only gains you the Cobra's Fang.

On 2013-05-02 09:52, Swanky wrote:
Matches my list pretty well.

Very similar! But it looks like for your 19 ingredients you can make 15 drinks, whereas my list of 21 ingredients gets you 38 drinks. I worked hard to find the sweet spot (although see my note below—you can in fact only make 22 drinks only using Remixed, which gets us much closer).

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2013-05-02 18:15 ]

D'oh! I made a mistake. Although I configured Grogalizer for Remixed and TC Drink Contest, I neglected to show the results for only those two sources, and it showed for all of them. In fact, you can make 22 drinks, not 38 (unless you've got a big bartending library!). They are:
Boo Loo
Carioca Hawaiian Cocktail
Derby Daiquiri
Doctor Funk
Hawaiian Eye
Hurricane
Iuka's Grogg
Kapu-Kai
Mai Tai (Hawaiian Style)
Mara-Amu
Navy Grog
Pago Pago
Pieces of Eight
Royal Hawaiian
Rum Tropical
Saturn
Shrunken Skull
South Pacific Punch
Stephen Remsberg's Planter's Punch
Sven-Tiki
Tailless Scorpion
Trader Vic Grog

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2013-05-02 18:17 ]

Pernod is just absinthe with the wormwood removed.

You list the Mai Tai (Hawaiian Style). You should list that as Mai Tai and Mai Tai (Hawaiian Style) as two separate drinks, so add one more drink to the number you can make with your list.

Great work. I've been meaning to do it myself, but never found the time.

Mahalo,
Dr. Coruba
(Who also thinks that you should drop the Myer's for the superior and less expensive Coruba)

Hey, it may seem like nothing, but try mixing a '34 Zombie with 6 drops of Pernod, then try without and you'll notice the difference. I almost always use absinthe whenever a pastis, like Pernod or Herbsaint, is called for. At BevMo, they have 100ml minis of Absente absinthe for $7.99 (at least, in Arizona they do). Absinthe is so potent in flavor it almost never gets used more than a few drops or dashes at a time, so these tiny little bottles go a long way! I've never seen a mini Pernod but if you can find a mini of absinthe it's a fairly economical solution! I think the old DTCB-style drinks that call for it are well worth including in your repertoire!

I agree - Pernod/Absinthe is an important ingredient. If you are successful in avoiding overuse then the subtleness is a nice little background "connector." I remember that it took me a while to learn how to be very careful with Pernod....

The smallest bottles of Pernod I've seen (and bought!) is 200ml. Not sure if they have any minis, but there you go. (Pernod, et al. do have their use in cooking, if that helps.)

I didnt realize Absente is a real absinthe.

Just to reiterate, Pernod/Absinthe are not the same thing. Pernod is a brand of Absinthe, also, a type of liqueur. A bottle of Pernod is $30, will last you forever, and is the proper ingredient. If a recipe needs absinthe, it'll call for absinthe. If it needs Pernod, it'll call for Pernod. They're the same, only different.

Here's a question I'm dragging over from a separate cocktail/non-Tiki discussion: How long will an open bottle of Pernod keep? What's the best way to store it once opened?

On 2013-06-12 06:44, jokeiii wrote:
Here's a question I'm dragging over from a separate cocktail/non-Tiki discussion: How long will an open bottle of Pernod keep? What's the best way to store it once opened?

Generally anything with an alcohol content above 30% will keep for a long, long time. Pernod is 40%. Things like vermouth, dubonnet rouge, and lower spirits need to be stored and kept like wine. Stored cool (not refrigerated, just below room temperature, approx 56 degrees or so. I have a refrigerator specifically for this, that I have turned on low, so that it doesn't become too cold.) once opened, always out of direct light, and once opened, it's best to seal them with some type of vacuum system. One that actively removes any oxygen in the bottle to create a seal, not the type that introduces oxygen to create a seal. Some vacuum stoppers just suck out enough air to create a vacuum seal, but do not remove all oxygen from a bottle.

Pernod is 40%, and should keep for a long time if stored properly. Unfortunately, Pernod Anise's recipe is a closely guarded secret, so there's no way to tell sugar content, though it's safe to assume there is so. So, unlike other boozes, it won't keep "indefinitely."

Here's a great article with guidelines on that:
http://cocktails.about.com/od/stockyourbar/f/liquor_storage.htm

And again, to remind everyone, when you see Pernod in a recipe, it calls for Pernod Anise liqueur. Pernod refers to Pernod Anise, just like Ricard refers to Ricard Pastis. Pernod aux extraits d'absinthe is their absinthe, which is considered the "original" absinthe. It comes from the original recipe by a Swiss doctor (like most good herbal liqueurs), and although it was originally distilled in Switzerland (in the first Absinthe distillery), it is most known for being distilled in France.

-Lucky

In anything other than straight spirits, I go with the "Vac-U-Vin" stoppers and a rest in the wine cellar. Not sure what anyone else uses, but there ya go.

On 2013-06-12 10:09, jokeiii wrote:
In anything other than straight spirits, I go with the "Vac-U-Vin" stoppers and a rest in the wine cellar. Not sure what anyone else uses, but there ya go.

Yup! Better safe than sorry!