Post #730559 by Hurricane Hayward on Thu, Oct 30, 2014 12:55 AM

Here we go ...

What's interesting (or concerning, depending on your point of view) about these two products is that they contain the exact same ingredients: Corn sweetener, water, orange juice concentrate, citric acid, xanthan gum, natural and artificial flavor, etc. The difference is obviously those unnamed flavors, and whatever also affects the color.

Comparing the two straight-up: The Red Tropical Gold syrup is fruiter, with more of a cherry taste. It's also distinctly more red in color. The plain Tropical Gold syrup has more sweet and tart nuances, along with more up-front passion fruit-like flavors (probably artificial, but you never know).

The true test is using them in a cocktail. As part of this research, I identified all the drinks in the Don the Beachcomber book by Phoebe Beach that call for fassionola:
Pi Yi (1/2 ounce)
Beachcomber's Rum Barrel (1/4 ounce)
Cherry Blossom Punch (1/4 ounce)
Cobra's Fang (1/4 ounce)
Q.B. Cooler (1/4 ounce)
http://www.hawaiibeachcomber.com/id4.html

Plus all the Atomic Grog tribute recipes that I've surmised contain The Mai-Kai's version of fassionola:

Current tribute recipes:
Cobra's Kiss (1/2 ounce)
Jet Pilot (1/4 ounce)
Tahitian Breeze (1/4 ounce)
Special Reserve Daiquiri (1/2 teaspoon)
Mai Tai (1/4 teaspoon)
Retired tribute recipes:
Impatient Virgin (1/2 teaspoon)
Suffering Bastard (1/4 teaspoon)

Since it appears in both lists, I decided to go with the Cobra's Kiss (Cobra's Fang) for this test ...

The drink containing the red fassionola (left) is decidedly more red, which fits the M.O. of The Mai-Kai's version. The color is perfect, but the drink could have used just a tad more sweetness. But it's certainly possible that The Mai-Kai's version of the syrup has just a slightly sweeter flavor profile. The regular Tropical Gold yields a drink that's less red and also a little too sweet.

If you look at the list of drinks above, most seem to benefit more from Red Tropical Gold, particularly from the added color. In The Mai-Kai tribute recipes especially, that boost of red color is needed to make them match up with the look of the originals. And there's a whole different list of drinks (Rum Barrel, Mara Amu, etc.) that feature a more pure and potent passion fruit syrup than the non-red fassionola.

That's not to say that either of these could find many more uses beyond the drinks listed above. I've yet to try them elsewhere, but I'm sure the plain Tropical Gold would work fine in a Hurricane. However, with so many better (and fresher) syrups at my disposal, I'll likely only use them for these niche purposes.

Okole maulua!