Post #755342 by Hurricane Hayward on Sun, Nov 29, 2015 10:54 AM

Mike: Upon further reflection, my educated guess is that Jeff tweaked the proportions to make them larger. I'm pretty sure he made multiple changes to drinks he found in old books to make them better. The "Mr. Lemon Hart" book is in the Sippin' Safari bibliography, so it makes sense that's his source for the Demerara Cocktail.

I'll try to verify this with him when I get a chance, but I know he made tweaks to replace defunct ingredients (like fassionola) and make some recipes more modern and easier to make, not to mention enhance "our own enjoyment/drunkenness." :>)

Also worth noting: Back in the day, recipes were kept in such secrecy that it wasn't uncommon for bartenders to give book writers and magazines a different recipe, often dumbed down or not as good as what they served in their bars. Donn Beach was known to do this, which is one of the theories about the 1950 Zombie.

So it's also possible that The Mai-Kai gave the Lemon Hart book publisher a scaled back recipe on purpose, though that doesn't really hide the secret that much. Come to think of it, I've seen smaller versions of the Mara Amu published as well.

Also, regarding the Shrunken Skull, they might have given the book the version without the 151 floater that Donn originally served. All the Mai-Kai menus I've seen include the little shot glass next to the mug. I'll have to ask Jeff about this as well. It's likely that he knew this, having already frequented The Mai-Kai when he published the Shrunken Skull recipe (without credit) in Grog Log. It's possible Jeff got this recipe from the Mr. Lemon Hart book and surmised that it was Donn's version.