What's the worst tiki drink recipe you've found?

A recipe for a Zombie in another thread made me wonder. What's the worst actual tiki drink recipe you've seen? Bonus points if you tried it. :)

[ Edited by: TikiTacky 2014-03-27 20:59 ]

demerara dry float.

totally an "emperor wears no clothes" drink.

Beachcomber's Gold from the original Grog Log.

2 types of vermouth, bitters, absinthe, and rum.

It's unfortunate, because the Beachcomber's Gold at Don the Beachcombers is one of my favorites.

That doesn't sound like a tiki drink, that sounds like several cocktails. Not sure how well rum would play with the other flavors, but every other spirit plays well with that mix. Though that will be a strong drink.

Most revolting to me isn't a single recipe but when it calls for you to reach for bottled mixers rather than fresh or things like sweetened condensed milk.

Bless Chip Dystra & his homemade cocktail recipes - I think his reviews are usually spot on.

Using the Tiki+ app my comments normally range from 'ok, good, surprisingly good, great' & so on. My list of drinks less than 'ok' (& their comments) includes:

Big Bamboo (mismatched)
Colonel Beachs Plantation Punch (mismatched)
Eastern Sour (boring)
El Diablo (unremarkable)
Nui nui (mismatched)
Port Light (not good)
Shrunken Skull (disappointing)
Suffering Bastard (insufficiently distinctive)
Trader Vic Grog (unremarkable)

Some of those I have made more than once to see if I can improve them, some I have poured down the drain when I got bored.

I think the correct booze / syrups / liquors can really help a drink but some I've not liked from the off!

Sea of Cortez - had one last weekend, couldn't get used to it though I did get through the drink.
Miehana - not the worst, but for the life of me I can't like it. It's that damn coconut rum I believe.

Adoradam - I actually like the Suffering Bastard. It may be because I use a high quality ginger beer instead of standard ginger ale.

On 2014-03-28 11:19, TikiTacky wrote:
I actually like the Suffering Bastard.

Me too.

After completing the entire Grog Log at the Tonga Hut I have to say the Gold Cup and Cruzana are both pretty awful.

The Gold cup only has one ounce of rum in it to mixture of sugar syrup, maraschino liqueur, pernod, almond and lime. The Cruzana is 2 ounces of gold rum, grapefruit juice and maraschino syrup right form the cherry jar. I'm happy I will never have to taste either of these drinks again.

Mulatta

1 3/4 ounces white rum
1/4 ounce brown crème de cacao
juice of 1/2 lime

Mix ingredients in a blender with a scoop of crushed ice. Serve in an iced cocktail glass.

It's quite a few years since I tried this drink but I definitely didn't like it as it tasted like sour wine if I recall correctly. Must have been the combination of chocolate and lime paired with that the proportions between these seem totally off.

www.thesurfites.com

[ Edited by: Klas 2014-05-26 07:29 ]

I have a bottle of Luxardo maraschino liqueur which I bought for some very specific drink recipes and have found that it imparts a very strange flavor into drinks. I also have a bottle of Heering cherry liqueur which I bought specifically to make Witch Doctors -- I haven't tried subbing it for maraschino, but it may give a much nicer result than maraschino liqueur in those drinks.

I don't have maraschino cherries, so I can't speak to the cherry juice/syrup. The whole maraschino flavor profile may have been considered "exotic" back in the day, so it may be that we're just not used to it. I may have to punish myself here at home by testing the Gold Cup you mentioned. I don't think I'll run out and buy maraschino cherries just to try the Cruzana with the cherry syrup. Or maybe I will. Heh...

Here's a good report I just found from someone on the web about making "good" cherry syrup at home with fresh cherries: http://stirandstrain.com/tag/cruzana/ This sounds interesting, I think I'm going to try this just for kicks.

Let's see if anyone else has some thoughts they can share on this.

I use Heering in Singapore Sling, and sometimes a teaspoon in a hawaiian-style mai tai.

I use Luxardo maraschino in several tasty drinks- Hemingway daiquiri, aviation, red lantern come to mind.

I've got a bottle of Luxardo that I also use in Hemingway's.

One night a friend decided to try and sub behind my bar and used it in a recipe that required a decent amount of either Sweet Vermouth or Brandy. Not knowing what and where everything was he grabbed the Luxardo. The resulting concoction was undrinkable and I kicked him out from behind the bar.

Ace I'd be curious to hear your (and others) opinion on the Gold CUp. I remember when my friends and I hit it on the Grog Log our bartender warned us that it was going to suck.

On 2014-05-26 07:35, thePorpoise wrote:
I use Heering in Singapore Sling...

I use Luxardo maraschino in several tasty drinks- Hemingway daiquiri, aviation..

Agreed, good drinks!

Yeah, Maraschino (the Luxado type not the Czech type) really can't really be subbed with anything since it has the flavor of the cherry pits, but it does have a slight almond flavor to it. Similar to how people think amaretto is almond liqueur when the real stuff is supposed to only use apricot kernels.

On 2014-05-26 10:25, wizzard419 wrote:
Yeah, Maraschino (the Luxado type not the Czech type) really can't really be subbed with anything since it has the flavor of the cherry pits, but it does have a slight almond flavor to it.

when out of Luxardo, i substitute 2 parts kirschwasser, 1 part orgeat...

On 2014-05-26 09:24, SoCal Savage wrote:
Ace I'd be curious to hear your (and others) opinion on the Gold CUp. I remember when my friends and I hit it on the Grog Log our bartender warned us that it was going to suck.

Ok, I made it and just finished it. Let me begin by sharing that I am not a fan of Pernod and not a big fan of Luxardo maraschino liqueur. When I saw that this drink requires a full teaspoon of Pernod, and a half ounce of maraschino, I figured I was gonna be in trouble right from the start. Two or three DROPS of Pernod is often too much in a drink.

The secret of this drink, for me, was to measure exactly (Science!) and to shake the hell out of the drink. I did both, got my shaker so cold that I couldn't hold it any more. The result is that the drink was well-shaken AND picked up critical liquid volume which the raw ingredients alone do not provide. I used Appleton V/X for my gold Jamaican rum and a glass eye dropper (from the WalMart pharmacy aisle) for the almond extract.

I ended up with a unique and pleasant drink, with many nice tiny bits of ice floating on the surface of the drink. It had a very nicely blended flavor. I was extremely surprised that the Pernod was so balanced out (negated?) by the other ingredient flavors. If anything was a little out of whack, it would have been the Luxardo maraschino was a little too strong. But this drink definitely did not suck. I would serve this to guests, but I would definitely take great care to prepare it the same way again.

Many "craft" or traditional tiki drinks rely on fairly precise measurements to achieve a good balance. Many also rely on proper shaker technique. Too much or too little shaking, like blending, can hurt a drink. In this drink, you need to shake to dilute and mix the ingredients well enough. I think this is a shake-til-you-cry-uncle drink, you almost can't over-shake this one.

I'd suggest giving the Gold Cup another try and see if it "opens up" a bit more for you. But I liked this enough that I'm definitely going to give it another try.

Here's a photo of my first Gold Cup. It looks like homemade Falernum.

Cheers!

Ace you make that sound so good and my memory from the Tonga Hut was pure Maraschino and Falernum bleeech.

I am going to have to give this a fair "shake" at home, being as precise as you were and making sure that I use a decent rum like Appleton V/X.

Are you going to give the Cruzana a try now??

I don't know what they were, but most of the room party drinks at every Tiki Oasis.

Tiki Thistle @ Three Dots

On 2014-05-27 22:32, SoCal Savage wrote:
Are you going to give the Cruzana a try now??

Yessir, I think I will try it. I don't have maraschino cherries, so I will have to sub with a generic cherry syrup. It's a simple drink, and I try not to underestimate "simple," sounds like I will have some fun with it.

One of the things I really enjoy about TC is that we get to share notes and thoughts on stuff like this. I have learned a lot from others here. So thanks to all for the drink suggestions and the encouragement.

On 2014-05-28 06:00, AceExplorer wrote:

One of the things I really enjoy about TC is that we get to share notes and thoughts on stuff like this. I have learned a lot from others here.

Agreed!

Not a lot of love for the Gold Cup on this thread---but I love it! The secret--as other posters have mentioned--is the right ingredients, exact precision, and enough shaking to get the thing nice and cold.

A drink I didn't care for in the past but came around for me with an ingredient change is the Montego Bay. It calls for Lime, Grapefruit, Honey, Dark Jamaican Rum and Pimento Liqueur. When I made it with Coruba, Myers's, or Appleton 12 year, it was too sweet and the flavors didn't blend right. Not good. The change that made it great was Blackwell Rum. It brought in just enough dryness, and let the honey/pimento/grapefruit combo really shine.