Post #783998 by Prikli Pear on Fri, Feb 16, 2018 7:54 AM

Elsewhere on Tiki Central I posted about making jackfruit-infused rum. Why jackfruit? Because it's an unusual, distinctive tropical flavor that's not really available outside of Juicy Fruit gum, and I have access to the stuff. I tried the jackfruit rum in a daiquiri. It was very flavorful but also way too sweet--that jackfruit brought a lot of fruit sugars along with it. Clearly, I needed to craft a signature cocktail for the Lagoon of Mystery around it.

I ended up with two cocktails. The first is super-fruity that I'll get around to sharing in the future. The second, the Jaguarundi, is an offshoot I'm sharing now. It evolved from an experiment with agricole that didn't work, but showed promise. I also found that using coconut milk had a positive effect on the drink's flavor, texture and mouthfeel. I don't like coconut normally. The texture of shredded coconut makes me gag. The flavor's normally too sweet and cloying. But an encounter with fresh coconut water during a trip to Jamaica some years ago showed me that all coconut is not created equal. I'm more open now to incorporating coconut into cocktails, although I still don't really like Coco Lopez, Coco Real and the like.

Jaguarundi
by Jayme Blaschke
1.5 oz. Jackfruit-infused Puerto Rican rum
1 oz. Agricole vieux (Rhum Clément V.S.O.P.)
1 oz. Lime juice
1 oz. Coconut milk (unsweetened!)
.5 oz. Pineapple juice
.5 oz. Ginger syrup
.5 tsp. Grenadine (pomegranate grenadine only--if you only have that nasty high fructose corn syrup stuff, skip entirely)
.5 tsp. Falernum
2 dashes Celery bitters (Fee Bros.)
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker tin with crushed ice and shake until frost forms on outside of tin. Gated pour into poco grande glass or tiki mug (I normally use a tiki mug, but went with the poco grande this time to show off the drink better) and add crushed ice to fill (I use the ice from the mixing tin). Garnish with a pineapple frond and candied ginger on a cocktail pick. A sprig of mint is okay too, if you're so inclined.

I searched the interwebz and didn't really come up with any recipes that are similar, even allowing for the rarity of jackfruit rum. Probably the biggest influences here are Brazilian batidas and the 3 Dots and a Dash, but it doesn't really taste like either of those. I'm by no means a polished mixologist, but I have to say I'm surprisingly pleased with my first real cocktail recipes. :)