Frankie's Tiki Room Liquid Vacation recipe book

..Liquid Vacation. Should I get it?

(Edited to assist thread consolidation)

[ Edited by: Early Landed Larry 2017-08-06 13:06 ]

Yes, I recommend it.

I wrote about this in the "What are your favorite cocktail recipe books" thread when the book was first published, I got one of the early copies from Amazon.

Yes, good book with superb eye candy photos and creative new recipes.

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2017-08-06 06:44 ]

Oops! Sorry. And thanks!

No worries! Get the book though - it's great also for showing to friends who are not familiar with cocktails. Chances are good they will find something they "must have," lol.

Great, I've ordered it! I have smugglers cove and the Berry tiki app which are both great but I want more! So glad I started this hobby.

Is it true that some of the Frankie's drinks have grain alcohol as an ingredient? Sure I saw that on a photo of a menu that suggested that!

Is it true that some of the Frankie's drinks have grain alcohol as an ingredient? Sure I saw that on a photo of a menu that suggested that!

I can't speak to the menu, but the book does not have any recipes calling for it.

Shame :wink:

Just kidding

On 2017-08-05 09:34, Early Landed Larry wrote:
Is it true that some of the Frankie's drinks have grain alcohol as an ingredient? Sure I saw that on a photo of a menu that suggested that!

Nope, not when I was there. And I don't recall seeing anything like that in the book, sounds like a rumor.

The recipe for Frankie's Mutiny calls for Everclear which is a grain alcohol.

On 2017-08-05 17:49, matt-tiki-teo wrote:
The recipe for Frankie's Mutiny calls for Everclear which is a grain alcohol.

Correct, thank you, "Mutiny" on page 94, but with ONLY 1/2 OUNCE. This is expected in a drink which is made with SEVEN ounces of liquid and built over ice and not shaken. The ingredients are mostly "weak" (4 oz of juice and soda, plus 1 oz sweet & sour, then other misc. things) except for the tiny 1/2 ounce of vodka.

I haven't looked through the whole Frankie's book in quite a while (I have a large shelf of cocktail books) but I will again soon now that I have it in front of me. (I have a Frankie's menu, and will also look at that later. Don't recall if the Mutiny is on their menu when I was there last.) If this is their only use of pure grain alcohol ("PGA") then it is a very broad and unfair generalization to criticize Frankie's for using this stuff. From a cocktail perspective, based on my knowledge and experience, this is a very appropriate use of PGA as an octane boost given the relative lack of "oomph" of the other ingredients. You can sub the PGA with more vodka with only a relatively minor impact on the drink. The PGA, however, is essential for purists seeking to recreate the drink as it is made in Las Vegas.

I routinely make syrups and tinctures and therefore keep and routinely use PGA in my bar and kitchen. I keep at least one 1.75l bottle around with which I refill my smaller bar and kitchen bottle. It is an effective shelf-life extender which is integral to keeping my homemade stuff useable, safe, and stable.

Correction to my earlier post - I did not start a new thread for the book but added the Frankie's book to the "Favorite Recipe Book" thread which requires a more detailed search string to find. Now that this thread has some "legs," perhaps the original poster (EarlyLanded Larry) would consider changing the name to something like "Frankie's Tiki Room Liquid Vacation recipe book" or something like that? I think that would be helpful. Then we could move the earlier Fink Bomb recipe discussion and others like it into a single thread. Cheers folks!

"Sobriety --- BE GONE!" :) (always drink responsibly)

I just finished looking through the rest of the Frankie's book and found no other recipes which add Everclear. So that means 1/2 oz of Everclear, in a single recipe, in the entire book. BUT - by re-familiarizing myself with the book, I found:

1. Lots of 151 rums, Wray & Nephew overproof, and Stroh's 160 included in the recipe. These high-octane ingredients are to be expected to a certain degree for genre of often juice-heavy tropical drinks. But clearly, to me, in my opinion, it is not warranted to single out Everclear although it is unusual and novel in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. But the Frankie's drinks ARE novel, fun, and often tongue-in-cheek, and even more so when you read their descriptions and back stories. This is a FUN book!
2. I was again impressed with the variations of drinks, the beautiful photography, and the pure fun which this book effectively puts across. (Note to self: Gotta make another beautifully-layered Fink Bomb!)
3. Good selection of syrup recipes at the back - very useful as a learning aid.
4. They have a Florida Daiquiri in the book, heavily inspired by the Floridita bar in Havana. Forgot about this, gotta try it, and hope Mike reads this cuz both of us had a great time on our trips there and have been testing recipes in an attempt to come close to the pure magic of the authentic Floridita daiquiri.

It really is fun having a home bar, and even more so when you have good recipes to play with.

Make yourself a drink. NOW! :)

AceExplorer
Grand Member (6 years)

....

Correct, thank you, "Mutiny" on page 94, but with ONLY 1/2 OUNCE. This is expected in a drink which is made with SEVEN ounces of liquid and built over ice and not shaken. The ingredients are mostly "weak" (4 oz of juice and soda, plus 1 oz sweet & sour, then other misc. things) except for the tiny 1/2 ounce of vodka.

....

Thanks! Looking forward to trying it. I wasn't suggesting that having Everclear as an ingredient was necessarily irresponsible! And no doubt treated with care it would work fine, after all it's only like using any other alcohol, with care in dosing needed.

.....

Now that this thread has some "legs," perhaps the original poster (EarlyLanded Larry) would consider changing the name to something like "Frankie's Tiki Room Liquid Vacation recipe book" or something like that? I think that would be helpful. Then we could move the earlier Fink Bomb recipe discussion and others like it into a single thread. Cheers folks!

• Done - Thanks AceExplorer! Photos of creations to follow. EL

On 2017-08-06 13:12, Early Landed Larry wrote:
I wasn't suggesting that having Everclear as an ingredient was necessarily irresponsible! And no doubt treated with care it would work fine, after all it's only like using any other alcohol, with care in dosing needed.

Thanks, EL! And also appreciate renaming the thread, I think it works well. Oh about the Everclear, what caused me to dig deeper is that the product has a "college" reputation if you know what I mean. It's rarely associated with our level of cocktail craft, and since the folks at Frankie's put so much of their passion, time, and energy into their work, I wanted to see for myself how things stood with the pure grain alcohol. It was fun to look up and see how things stood.

I'm looking forward to your photos, and I should do the same and will certainly try. One tip, if you try the Fink Bomb. Pour the ingredients carefully over a round ice ball to get the layering. The presentation is stellar!

Cheers to you!

It's always 5 o'clock somewhere, but I'm fine mixing up some magic even at 8am, 9am, 10am, etc.!!!

So the book has landed, so far we've tried the Bombora Blast - I made Mrs Larry's one with soda water instead of Rockstar because she doesn't like any energy drinks (the recipe has 2 oz of Rockstar as a topper) and left mine as written. Interestingly I preferred the soda water version - I thought the energy drink bullied the other ingredients but that may be because I used guava juice rather than nectar.. I love the irreverent inclusion of various modern juices and soft drinks.

A question - there's a lot of call in the book for Whalers Dark Rum. Being based in the U.K. I cannot get this (therein lies a tale for MANY of the standard tiki rums..).

Judging from reviews this is just a fairly neutral, moderately sweet dark blend - it sounds like Goslings would be a decent substitute, what do you think? The styles of dark rum I can get are Myers's, Captain Morgan, and various navy style blends but the description of the Whalers doesn't sound like it is either Jamaican or Navy style. (In the absence of a categorisation system in the Frankies book I will need to figure these out myself.). Cheers!

I have subbed in the Myers' and it worked well. I tend to avoid Capt. Morgan products, but if you have a limited selection available, definitely try it as well. Can't recall playing with Goslings (or Coruba or Cruzan) dark in the Frankie's recipes.

Ironically, I avoid the recipes with energy drinks, but I went out of my way to buy the Stroh's rums for the book. Bass-ackwards, but that's what I did because of how unique the Stroh's flavor and aroma is in the drinks.

It's nice that we do not have to use the exact same rums called for in recipes. The drinks would not be the same by name, but you would often find yourself "in the circle" in close enough proximity to the bullseye to consider it a success. There are exceptions, like using Stroh's as a sub for Pusser's in a painkiller. (Gotta try that!)

I agree - theirs is a helluva fun book with great presentation ideas and photos.

Yes I am totally going to get some Stroh! I've never tried it before. Will try Meyers for the Whaler sub, thanks.

So after roughly a week (I'm on temporary leave, so yeah, cocktails in the week!) I've had the following thoughts about he Frankie's book. I've copied this from a blog I do / my own fb page so the context may seem a bit jarring but these are last night's observations:

Ahhhhhh.. (recipe at the very bottom here for a much adjusted Scotch-based drink!)

So we made a Thurston Howl tonight (recipe pictured) and I'm feeling my way through this recipe book (I think it's a reference to an old US tv show). Here's a photo of the recipe.

I've gone to reasonable lengths to get hold of a few of the juices used commonly in this book, 'guava nectar' being one of them - i subbed it for the "papaya nectar" in this one.

Cocktail recipes are not all the same

Some comments on the Frankie's book (which may be of general interest) - whether you're talking drinks or food, there's definitely such a thing as a good cookbook and a not so good one!

My other main Tiki recipe book is Smuggler's Cove by Martin Cate, and it always reminds me of using a Delia Smith cookbook or following a recipe from the Serious Eats website - every single drink I've make from it has hit home, and just works, even if the end product might not be your thing. This is down to two things: 1) that author recognises that not everyone will have access to the exact same brands of ingredients he refers to, so he goes to some lengths to explain what the common components are (especially the rums) and what might work as a substitute. 2) the recipes have obviously all been tried and tested repeatedly, and adapted for a domestic kitchen (a la Delia, and all the best food cookbooks).

In contrast, the Frankie's book kind of reminds me of using a Jamie Oliver book - lots of great ideas, and some of the recipes are instant winners - who would have thought mixing rum, Chambord and ginger beer? But, too many of them seem to have been hastily thrown together and just not tested. Occasionally I'll spot the odd howler like no citrus juice in an exotic cocktail that obviously needs it (see below!) - the equivalent of Jamie's "boil the eggs for nine minutes before baking" from one of his fish pie recipes. Er, no.

The recipe here, indeed, has no citrus juice in it - I'm certain that must be a printing error because it's a pretty long drink, and it just tasted weird in the tin when I tried it before shaking, with no bite at all to cut against the masses of sweet juice. It was crying out for some citrus, so I added a half oz of lemon juice before I shook it, which helped.

Also, with 6 whole oz (!) of fruit juice, especially when half of that is commercial sweetened nectar, is an absolutely huge amount and seemed to me unlikely to balance with the spirits and the other flavourings - and, as I suspected, I couldn't taste any cinnamon or ginger from the syrups, nor even much of the booze.

(I made up some ginger syrup as it appears in a few of the recipes in the new book and it smells great, so I really wanted to try it).

On commercial juice and soft drinks

The juice seems to be another theme of the Frankie's book - I do like the idea of using modern branded soft drinks in cocktails, but so far they have all been super noticeable in the mix, to the point that they bully the other ingredients - and this drink was no exception! A related gripe is that the book, perhaps not anticipating that anyone would ever read it outside of California, calls in almost all cases for highly specific name brand ingredients, and contains no clue as to what they're like (are they sweet? would any 'tropical' blend of juice stand in for POG - what's the deal? We don't get Whaler's rum here, so I've no clue if their vanilla rum is sweet or not, to give some of dozens of examples). So I also have no real idea whether the juice I've bought is what's screwing up this recipe or if it's just a bum recipe. But either way, for all the faff of preparing it, this ended up tasting like sweet fruit punch at a student party - you ought to be able to taste most of the major flavours distinctly and you just can't.

The alternative drink

SO. The Thurston Howl was a flop (although mrs B enjoyed hers after I added 3/4 of lime juice to it and topped it up with soda). HOWEVER. It had the makings of something wonderful.

I really wanted something that would showcase the ginger syrup I have recently taken the time to make. Triangulating through other drinks that you might use ginger in, and returning via the classic hot toddy, I decided to use some smokey scotch.

Cleaving fairly close to the recipe pictured, I replaced the gin with scotch and dialled back the fruit juice considerably. I decided to use some lime juice to provide a sharper and more distinct bite than the merely serviceable lemon.

The final recipe ended up being:

1.5 oz Appleton extra
1 oz Talisker
3/4 oz brandy (increased from a quarter because our current brandy is an inoffensive but not very strong 38% corner shop bottle)

1/4 oz cinnamon syrup
1/2 oz ginger syrup
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz guava nectar
1.5 oz pineapple juice

Dash tiki bitters (angostura would also be fine)

SO MUCH BETTER. The "dark golden" rum gives a pleasant base to sit the whole thing on, but isn't obtrusive. The most pleasing thing is how well you can taste the scotch and the ginger together (and they go really well - you could almost imagine having this hot), and the fact that they are complemented by the pineapple.

The guava nectar might as well not be there, and I will leave it out of future recipes - I suspect it would be good just with pineapple juice, but maybe a small measure of something like unsweetened passion fruit purée would help it along for a more broad-spectrum 'tropical' profile.

[ Edited by: Early Landed Larry 2017-08-25 17:23 ]

So -this evening (Saturday) mrs Larry and I are getting on with the book a little better. We tried the 5-0 Fireball which was really quite good, like a longer Zombie (photo to follow)

I've concluded that the issues I've been having can mostly be addressed by dialling back the sweetness by about 1/3rd. Also I'm keeping an eye on the citrus as they tend to go under, imo, in quite a few of the recipes.

This recipe is as follows:
1 oz lemon hart substituted with OFTD
1 oz Myers plantation (actually Bacardi 8)
1/2 Appleton extra (supposed to be the Special but we went with the next bargain point up)
3/4 chambord
1/2 oz vanilla syrup
1/2 oz lime
Dash organge bitters
1 oz 7up and 2 oz soda for which we dialled back the soft drink to just 1/2 of Sprite

Burning bread on top ....

This was the Fireball (this is two cocktails in an XL Hurricane glass for extra beast mode)

Our fire kind of sucked (first time in the house) because we were too timid to fill the shells, so we put breadsticks through holes in lime shells and dipped the other end in Stroh.

A very nice cocktail but I MUST SAY we still added 3/4 of white grapefruit juice to each one - and it improved it massively, really helped add a little welcome dryness. It was still on the sweet side..

Best drink of the evening!

1.5 oz Appleton Reserve (might be called something different where you are - the blend that sits one down from the 12yo
.5 oz OFTD
Generous splash (a couple of teaspoons) of apricot liqueur
Spash of ginger syrup
Dash of chocolate bitters

Picture shows sprig of mint, but I actually swapped this for a small grapefruit twist, nothing overwhelming. Highly reccommend something like this - a twist on an Old Fashioned that will kick your a*se, overproof Tiki style.

So -this evening (Saturday) mrs Larry and I are getting on with the book a little better. We tried the 5-0 Fireball which was really quite good, like a longer Zombie (photo to follow)

I've concluded that the issues I've been having can mostly be addressed by dialling back the sweetness by about 1/3rd. Also I'm keeping an eye on the citrus as they tend to go under, imo, in quite a few of the recipes.

This recipe is as follows:
1 oz lemon hart substituted with OFTD
1 oz Myers plantation (actually Bacardi 8)
1/2 Appleton extra (supposed to be the Special but we went with the next bargain point up)
3/4 chambord
1/2 oz vanilla syrup
1/2 oz lime
Dash organge bitters
1 oz 7up and 2 oz soda for which we dialled back the soft drink to just 1/2 of Sprite

Burning bread on top ....

Really sorry about these repeat posts, I'll try to get to the bottom of it.

Early Landed Larry - thanks for the GREAT analysis and your impressions based on real tests. You have definitely "dropped the drawers" of Frankie's. I have always thought that they have gone out of the way to create their own unique cocktails, and quite interestingly using a number of pop-culture ingredients. I also like some and dislike others, but that's typical for me at any establishment or in any book, so I have tended to gloss over (or entirely overlook) those things in Frankie's. I, especially, don't like anything with an energy drink in it. But you focused very specifically on some of the quirks and deficiencies, and then addressed them, and I plan on following in your footsteps and revisiting some of the drinks.

I have small collection of vintage, and a fairly large collection of modern, cocktail books. I have developed a habit of picking through and dabbling with each. I have a high "discard rate" for drinks that don't blow me away, and then I absolutely fall in love with others. So you've really reminded me of many of the things which make a home bar so much fun.

By the way, your flaming pretzel sticks are SAVAGE! Love it!!! I have been using lemon extract for flaming garnishes, smells nice and burns well.

Wanted to add a couple things...

Right from the beginning, I remember taking the Frankie's book at face value regardless of good or bad, without tweaks and alterations except for an occasional substitution here and there as needed. Having visited the bar a few times during my last visit to Las Vegas, I saw Frankie's as a very unique place with a very unique menu. So my approach to the book is due to my interest in a "purist" approach. I like to make what the originator made and wanted to share with the world. Then there came all the distractions of other cocktail books, other recipe projects in my bar, etc. etc. etc. I think you know that story....

One question for you -- are you a cognac fan? Your TC handle leads me to suspect that you are a cognac fan, as in "early landed cognac." :)

:drink:

Early Landed Larry -- I'm a little confused by your analysis of the Thurston Howl. You say there's no citrus juice in the recipe, but in the picture you provide it states "1/4 ounce white grapefruit juice."

On 2017-08-30 06:39, AceExplorer wrote:
Early Landed Larry - thanks for the GREAT analysis and your impressions based on real tests. You have definitely "dropped the drawers" of Frankie's. I have always thought that they have gone out of the way to create their own unique cocktails, and quite interestingly using a number of pop-culture ingredients. I also like some and dislike others, but that's typical for me at any establishment or in any book, so I have tended to gloss over (or entirely overlook) those things in Frankie's. I, especially, don't like anything with an energy drink in it. But you focused very specifically on some of the quirks and deficiencies, and then addressed them, and I plan on following in your footsteps and revisiting some of the drinks.

I have small collection of vintage, and a fairly large collection of modern, cocktail books. I have developed a habit of picking through and dabbling with each. I have a high "discard rate" for drinks that don't blow me away, and then I absolutely fall in love with others. So you've really reminded me of many of the things which make a home bar so much fun.

By the way, your flaming pretzel sticks are SAVAGE! Love it!!! I have been using lemon extract for flaming garnishes, smells nice and burns well.

Hey thanks for the feedback! I was worried I'd rambled as I wrote that after the cocktails in question. We were pleased with the pretzel stocks although they dlefinity didn't look quite professional!

I'm going to keep adding to this as I go along. Another development I've been quite pleased with has been with the fruit nectars, an ingredient I've never used before. We bought some guava nectar but I didn't like the flavour (too indistinct) or the mouthfeel - it was too obviously an emulsion of smashed up fruit and mildly sugared water. Maybe we picked a poor brand.

Anyway, my wife made another drink from the book, the Tangerine Speedo, and used a purée of fresh conference pears for the pear nectar. This worked REALLY well! I think that using fresh fruit blitzed to a thick-ish puree will be the way forward, as it solves both the problem we seem to have in the UK with indifferent brands of nectar, and also the additional sweetness the commercial nectars bring.

I've now bought some guavas so we'll see how that works out, as some of the most appealing looking recipes have a requirement for this nectar. Cheers!

On 2017-08-30 06:47, AceExplorer wrote:

.....

One question for you -- are you a cognac fan? Your TC handle leads me to suspect that you are a cognac fan, as in "early landed cognac." :)

:drink:

There's also early landed rum! It's a reference to that. I live in Bristol, England, which was a big trading port in colonial times and there's something of a tradition here and in the other historic uk ports of shipping over young rums in order to age them in the much cooler conditions of England (or Scotland). I was casting around for a name that would reflect something of my circumstances and picked that one.

On 2017-08-30 15:31, arriano wrote:
Early Landed Larry -- I'm a little confused by your analysis of the Thurston Howl. You say there's no citrus juice in the recipe, but in the picture you provide it states "1/4 ounce white grapefruit juice."

Arriano, you're absolutely right! There is that small amount of grapefruit juice. I overlooked it because i often don't think of grapefruit as citrus. But going by the other ingredients in that drink, I would expect to see at least a half oz of lime of lemon as well to balance the spirit, juices and syrup, which wasn't there and the absence did make the drink taste really unbalanced. (In Martin Cate's zombie there's also this very tiny measure of grapefruit juice but that also has a half oz of lime).

On 2017-08-31 15:42, Early Landed Larry wrote:
There's also early landed rum! It's a reference to that. I live in Bristol, England, which was a big trading port in colonial times and there's something of a tradition here and in the other historic uk ports of shipping over young rums in order to age them in the much cooler conditions of England (or Scotland). I was casting around for a name that would reflect something of my circumstances and picked that one.

Bingo - that's exactly what I read about, but didn't read anything about the rum. I had previously not heard about spirits being shipped to England for finishing, so I learned something very interesting. At past Hukilau events we have had speakers who told us quite a bit about the historic rum docks in London. So very cool!

This is a variation on the Ah Foo in the book. I'm a sucker for short rum drinks, and I'm a particular fan of variations on old fashioneds, albeit this is more like a daiquiri. I've also been playing with the date syrup i made to service a few recipes in this book.l. The syrup is pretty subtle (especially compared to something like cinnamon syrup), but it definitely has its place.

This is one of the drinks in the book I think is pretty much perfect just as it is - although I prefer to reduce the syrup from 3/4 to a half an ounce for my own taste. It's a brilliant, simple idea,and it is delicious, but at the same time I'd never have thought to make date infused syrup myself. It's also ripe for varying in many ways!

This version has:

Half oz OFTD
3/4 each of Appleton Reserve and Mt Gay Eclipse (but really any of your favourite dark to light golden rums would do, probably not something really abrasive like Myers's, though!)
1/2 oz each of white grapefruit and lime juice
1/2 oz date syrup
A dash each of tiki and xocolate bitters.

Shake well with ice and strain through a fine strainer into an old fashioned glass over a large ice, with a grapefruit twist. Twist the grapefruit peel over the glass and rub around the rim then add to the glass.

YEAH! Every time I make one of these I pretty much love it, and this is no exception. If anything I think the grapefruit works better than the original lemon. It's very fresh, the date syrup is subtle, but you can taste it and it plays well with the other flavours, particularly the tiki bitters, which work great with this combination (I don't always rate them in every context). The bitters elevate it above being just a daiquiri variation, which is why I put it over an ice ball. I'm not sure I would ever boost a dacquiri with OFTD or dark rum of any kind, but it certainly works well here.

A SquidZink. The only tweak I made was to drop the OJ (I'm out) and add a half oz of coconut rum. The spiced rum is Captain, not Sailor Jerry.

This was great - one of the first Frankie's drinks where I thought the addition of a cheap & cheerful store ingredient worked well - the Morgan's Spiced has notes in it that really go well with the mango "drink" (picked up from my local Indian store). Float is Appleton Reserve as we don't get Whaler's here.