Post #690990 by Swanky on Thu, Aug 22, 2013 9:19 AM

Let me tell you a Zombie story...

Like most of us, back in the dark ages of the turn of the century, I had made up and drank a Zombie. It was an awful drink with the horrid exclamation point of Bacardi 151 at the end. One was enough and that thing was never made again. I can still taste it in my mind!

In 2003, I tried the Mai-Kai Zombie for the first time and really loved it, but it was no Zombie, it tasted great! For years I urged others to try it. Otto loved it too for sure.

Then Jeff Berry gave his presentation at Hukilau on his years of struggling to find the real Zombie recipe. He knew that that drink was Donn's signature and it set off the Tiki craze. As wonderful as the other Donn drinks were, the Zombie must be a great drink too. So that Bacardi thing was not it. After a solid 10 years of research, he had found the original recipe.

I was handed that drink in the seminar and one sip and I thought "This is the Mai-Kai recipe!" The drink I thought was nothing like a Zombie, had turned out to be THE Zombie! Right there under our noses!

A couple of years ago I got Mariano's Zombie recipe, written in his own hand. Comparing it to the recipe in Sippin' Safari, I saw it was exactly the same. The Mai-Kai Zombie really was the original, kept intact since 1956, long after the last Don the Beachcomber's closed and Donn passed away. It is still there, keeping the spirit of Tiki alive!