1934 Zombie: possible variations(?)

As I may have mentioned here before...I'm not 100% satisfied with the way my Zombies are turning out at home, and I am following the recipe to the letter, including homemade Falernum and Grenadine. One slight tweek I made that was an improvement this past weekend was using Don Q 151 instead of the Lemon Hart that the recipe calls for. Now, there are Zombies that I've had outside of my own home that I thoroughly enjoyed, some seem to stick to the original while others are a variation. Some that I have enjoyed are the ones at Bootlegger in Palm Springs, as well as the Zombie served at Tonga Hut in No. Hollywood. Mai Kai's Zombie is also amazing. I'm thinking of adding a 1/4 or 1/2 ounce of Orgeat to see what happens. Anybody got any good tweeking ideas to share. I'm looking for a slightly mellow/sweeter flavor than what the original has.

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2019-11-19 20:07 ]

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2019-11-19 20:07 ]

I like this one from the Beachbum- both for it’s great taste and it’s ease of preparation. 

Zombie (1950)
1 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce fresh lemon juice

1 ounce unsweetened pineapple juice

1 ounce passion fruit syrup

1 ounce white Puerto Rican rum

1 ounce gold Puerto Rican rum

1 ounce 151-proof Demerara rum

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 dash Angostura bitters
You can make several as easily as you can make one.
Cheers

This is David Embury's recipe from his book 'The Fine art Of Mixing Drinks'.

A friend of mine was managing a bar and had this on the menu about the same time that i was getting into Tiki and into cocktails. It was a long time ago so i have no idea how close he stuck to the recipe but i do know he used both apricot and cherry and i'm pretty sure they were liqueurs, not brandies.

This was the first zombie i ever tried and i absolutely loved it and it's what made it my favourite tropical cocktail, i much prefer a good zombie to a mai tai. (Although admittedly it's been so long since i've had this version if i had one now i might find i don't like it as much as my palate has changed over time. I think it's time to try one again).

1 tsp. Sugar Syrup

1/2-3/4 oz. Lime Juice

3/4 oz. Fresh Pineapple Juice*1

1 oz. White Label Rum

2 oz. Gold Label Rum*2

1 oz. Jamaica Rum

2 tsp. Apricot Liqueur*3

1/2-3/4 oz. mysterious ingredient*4

1. Shake all ingredients together with crushed ice and pour into a Zombie glass*.

2. Float 1/2-1 tsp. 151-Proof Demerara Rum on top.

3. Decorate with orange, lemon, pink and green cherries, a pineapple stick and several springs of mint.

4. Sprinkle powdered sugar over all this.

*A Zombie glass is a tall, narrow glass. Also appropriate to use a Tiki glass – a ceramic, Polynesian mug with reliefs of trees, voodoo faces or naked women.

*1. Falernum or orgeat may be substituted.

*2. “Just for the sake of making it more complicated this may be changed to 1 oz. gold label rum and 1 oz. Barbados or Haitian rum.

*3. “For the same reason this may be changed to 1 tsp. apricot and 1 tsp. cherry. Sometimes the liqueurs are used and sometimes brandies.

*4. “This is usually papaya juice. Sometimes it is coconut juice. Sometimes – and preferably – this ingredient is omitted altogether.

You can have an endless parade of Zombies ‘in name only’. As far as the real deal, my favorite is either the Aku Aku Zombie from Remixed, or Hurricane’s Mai Kai Zombie v2, subbing gf juice for the lemon juice. At the end of the day though, if I’m in the mood for those flavors I will typically just make a good Jet Pilot.

I don't think i have ever had a Zombie I have to try this, i thank you.

I'd suspect your falernum or the rum. Home made falernum tends to be way too strong for vintage recipes. POssibly the grenadine too, for the same reason.

I suggest making it with stuff from the store, Velvet Falernum. Hamilton or Lemon Hart 151.

I have the Mai-Kai's recipe and it's virtually the same as the DtB Zombie Punch Jeff published, Mariano just dialed back the booze. So that's show's the solidity of Jeff's recipe.

The drink is fairly subtle.

Also, the #4 isn't likely grapefruit and cinnamon syrup. The Mai-Kai has never used cinnamon syrup excpet when making special outside recipes recently. But it is in the flavor profile.

On 2019-11-20 05:10, Swanky wrote:
I'd suspect your falernum or the rum. Home made falernum tends to be way too strong for vintage recipes. POssibly the grenadine too, for the same reason.

I suggest making it with stuff from the store, Velvet Falernum. Hamilton or Lemon Hart 151.

I have the Mai-Kai's recipe and it's virtually the same as the DtB Zombie Punch Jeff published, Mariano just dialed back the booze. So that's show's the solidity of Jeff's recipe.

The drink is fairly subtle.

Also, the #4 isn't likely grapefruit and cinnamon syrup. The Mai-Kai has never used cinnamon syrup excpet when making special outside recipes recently. But it is in the flavor profile.

Thanks for all the responses.

I figured making your own stuff is better than getting store bought, but I'll take your advice Swanky. Now that I have bottle of homemade Falernum and grenadine can you suggest what those would be good for? What's a good store bought grenadine?

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2019-11-20 19:33 ]

"What's a good store bought grenadine"

November is pomegranate month, pomegranate makes grenadine, the BEST grenadine.
Store bought grenadine is made from cherry juice mostly.

Buy some pomegranates, get the ones that are large fat and heavy and deep red in color, seed them, put sugar on seeds, crush seeds to get the juice out, strain.
You can freeze this juice for over a year and it is still good.

We use it for cooking/baking mostly, Strawberry rhubarb pie.
Rhubarb grows in the summer so we need to freeze pomegranate juice till that time.

This juice gives a really rich fruit punch type flavor making anything cherry or strawberry taste like you just got lucky and found the perfect cherry or strawberries for your pie.

For a drink I put some vodka and pomegranate juice in a shaker with ice strain for a nice pink martini.

pomegranate juice will stain forever so take care when making it.

I just juiced eight of them, you get about one cup of juice per pomegranate.

Good luck!!

I had a thought recently when looking at a Don the Beachcomber menu: Have we been making the Zombie wrong?

I say this because if you look at the images on DtB menus of the OB Cooler, Mint Julep and Beachcomber's Punch, you'll notice that the mint is indeed a garnish sticking out from the top of the glass. However, on the same menu, the image of the Zombie shows the mint floating around at the bottom of the glass. That got me to thinking -- are we actually supposed to be muddling the mint? That would definitely change the flavor of a Zombie to something akin to a very complex Mojito.