Post #356287 by arriano on Mon, Jan 21, 2008 9:37 AM

I recently made a chart where I compared the ingredients of four Don the Beachcomber recipes for Zombies. They include the 1934 Zombie Punch and 1956 Zombie, both from “Sippin’ Safari,” as well as the Zombie recipe in the book “Hawaiian Tropical Drinks by Don the Beachcomber” and a 1938 article in the Winnipeg Free Press.

I’ve been wondering about the Zombie recipe that appeared in Cabaret Magazine in 1956, which is quoted in “Sippin’ Safari.” It seems odd to me that Donn Beach would be so secretive about his recipes, and then simply allow a magazine to publish the recipe for his signature cocktail. I wonder if he didn’t both simplify and make a couple of changes so that people could make a Zombie, but it would never taste quite as good as the one they got at Don the Beachcomber.

The 1956 recipe differs from the 1934 recipe in four areas: It substitutes grapefruit juice for Don’s Mix, cuts down on the amount of rum, and adds pineapple juice and maraschino liqueur. The “Hawaiian Tropical Drinks” recipe is very close to the 1956 recipe, but omits pineapple juice, and adds simple syrup, and light Puerto Rican and Guatemala rums.

The 1938 Winnipeg article obviously does not include all the ingredients of the drink, however it lists four different rums: Dark Jamaican, Gold Puerto Rican, Demerara 151, and, intriguingly, Guadalupe rum. I wonder if the authors of “Hawaiian Tropical Drinks” misread a recipe that called for Guadalupe rum, and mistakenly included Guatemala rum instead.

So I have a theory: Perhaps for the 1956 recipe, Donn Beach left out a rum, included grapefruit juice rather than breaking down the ingredients of Don’s Mix, and then added pineapple juice because a lot of people expect it in tropical drinks. So trying to read between the lines, I wonder if a Zombie recipe closer to Don the Beachcomber’s version (post Zombie Punch era) might be the following:

3/4 oz Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz Don’s Mix
1/2 oz Falernum
1 oz Dark Jamaican Rum
1 1/4 oz Gold Puerto Rican Rum
1 oz Demerara Rum 151
1 oz Guadalupe (or Martinique) Rum
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
6 drops Pernod
1/4 oz Grenadine
3/4 oz Maraschino Liqueur

I haven’t tried this yet as I do not currently have all the ingredients. Plus I recently moved and don’t have my bar set up yet. But if anyone out there does have these ingredients and is willing to experiment, I’d be very much interested in the results.