Tiki Central / Tiki Drinks and Food / A Spiritous Journey through Remixed - From the Astro Aku Aku to the Zadaran Storm
Post #766689 by Destro100 on Tue, Jul 26, 2016 7:02 PM
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Destro100
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Tue, Jul 26, 2016 7:02 PM
Simple is better Drink 74: Spindrift Jr.
Ingredients I used: The first thing that struck me was the interesting merger achieved by this concoction. It is the perfect drink to give someone looking for an overly-sweet boat drink without shaming yourself or your bar. The drink is sweet. Fortunately, I make my passion fruit quite tart and that helps to tame some of the sweetness. Additionally, I love passion fruit and this drink has a pronounced passion fruit flavor. The orange and lemon seem to work to help enhance the passion fruit and add complexity and balance rather than dominating the drink and creating a typical tiki citrus punch. While sipping’, I noticed nice background notes of vanilla that contribute a novel candy-like memory to my noggin. I did not have any vanilla bean handy and decided to try the vanilla extract method of making vanilla syrup. I have to admit, I think it works. It might add a little too much sweetness, but using a very good extract does manage to bring out adequate vanilla flavor to the syrup. Further testing and comparisons to come. A very good rum definitely helps the drink stand out. I love the El Dorado 12, perhaps better than the 15, and I think it works great in this recipe. Strangely, in comparison, I may favor the Jr. rather than the original Spindrift. I think its simplicity is an asset as the flavors all manage to share the spotlight and not get lost within each other. It doesn’t help that the origin Spindrift has quite a few ingredients and therefore can be quite time-consuming to create. The amounts called for in Remixed definitely create a drink that is too small. I had to add a ridiculous amount of ice just to make the drink look right. It’s definitely safe to double everything. I noticed that reviews on the Grogalizer were all over the place and couldn't’t figure out why. I don’t think the drink is top tier, but I do think it is “dare I say?” delicious. I will say that the drink is a bit one-note and doesn’t develop over time with dilution. It tends to maintain the same flavor throughout the drink. This is both good and bad. Good, because it’s a yummy drink, bad, because the sweetness tends to linger a bit too long. I did make this drink a second time for a dinner party of six with some minor adjustments. I added an additional 1/2 ounce of rum and a dash of Angostura. I also used El Dorado 8 instead. A little splash of soda water also brought a little fun fizz to the drink. I found that these changes worked out quite nicely. My personal rating: ***1/2 (3.5) out of ***** (5) SCORECARD: 4.5 ALMOST PERFECT - 3 drinks so far 4 - EXCELLENT - 12 drinks and counting 3.5 - VERY GOOD - 25 drinks and counting 3 - GOOD - 20 drinks and counting 2.5 - ABOVE AVERAGE - 4 drinks and counting 2 - AVERAGE - 8 drinks and counting 1.5 - BELOW AVERAGE - 2 drinks and hopefully not too many more |
