Zombie Recipe

I just made a couple of Zombies using the 1934 recipe, and I thought the demerara rum (Lemon Hart 151) really overpowered the drink. It also really packs an alcoholic punch. I think I'll try it again with all the other ingredients in the same proportions but omit the demerara. The drink really tasted of brown sugar or molasses and leather. The licorice came through, too, but that was about it. I was very surprised because I expected to really love this cocktail and followed the recipe to the letter.

On 2008-07-12 12:38, Tonga Tiki wrote:
Normally I make the 1950 recipe Zombie. Last weekend I made some falernum and yesterday I made Don's mix. So today I am making the 1934 Zombie punch. Holy Crap! It hits you like a freight train...of course in a good way. The spicy flavor is much different than the more citrus flavored 1950. Don had the right idea.

This hits the nail on the head. Spot on description.

Time for a Zombie weekend!

Thanks for the pictures, Sven. I'd like to take that Zombie label and turn it into a framed print!

I second GatorRob -- that label would make a wonderful full-color print, maybe in a bamboo frame.

I am really wanting to try to make a Zombie such as the ones served at Forbidden Island (my fav)--but I have been searching for 20 minutes and cant find where its mentioned as to what the recipe is or as to what recipe they use.

Can someone please assist me? I am 99% sure that Martin mentioned it somewhere but I cant freakin find it and its driving me bonkers! Any help would be appreciated :)

OK IGNORE THIS...

I found it!

[ Edited by: leleliz 2009-06-05 21:07 ]

In several places within this thread, there is discussion of a minor controversy regarding the Zombie recipe in Patrick Gavin Duffy's The Official Mixer's Manual, first published in 1934. (The book was commissioned by the publisher, and it appears they retained the copyright.) This is the recipe that appeared on page 89 of Berry's Grog Log, as "an anonymous 1934 attempt to reproduce" the Don the Beachcomber Zombie. (Berry actually found the recipe in an early-90s Santa Monica newspaper article, attributed to an unnamed 1934 source. Later, post-Grog Log, he discovered the article's "source" was clearly the Duffy book.)
The controversy arises from the question of how Duffy could include, in his 1934 book, a recipe for a cocktail that was supposedly only first invented in 1934. How could this drink, from the just-opened Hollywood hole-in-the-wall Don's Beachcomber, have already attained a reputation sufficient that it would be included in a bartender's book by a very traditional east-coast pre-Prohibition cocktail expert? Something seems rather fishy, as several have noticed. Here are some of the relevant posts:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=3892&forum=10&vpost=43943
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=3892&forum=10&vpost=209767
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=3892&forum=10&vpost=209833
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=3892&forum=10&vpost=253845

In a recent TC Zombie thread, this same topic arose. It is also posed in the Webtender Wiki article on the Zombie. I believe I stumbled upon the answer,... or at least to the extent to show our assumptions were wrong. Duffy's book was reprinted many times, first in 1940, then 1948, and so on. I have the 1940 edition, and it includes the Zombie recipe. It lists copyright years of 1934 and 1940, each with a different publisher. Apparently, the new publisher acquired the rights from the original (I don't know if Duffy had any editorial involvement with this or later editions). I noticed the style of how the Zombie recipe is written up differs from the other recipes. Was it really ever in the 1934 book, or was it added in 1940? I finally found an online copy of the original 1934 edition, digitized by Google from a copy in the UC library. The 1940 edition appears to be printed with the same plates, same pagination. But look on page 209 - where 1940 has the Zombie recipe, 1934 has blank space! The Zombie recipe was NOT in Duffy's original 1934 version, after all. The Zombie was added in the empty space, beginning with the 1940 printing, and judging by the style, it was added by the publisher, not Duffy. So, the issue only arose, because everyone was reading later editions, but assuming they were exact reprints of the 1934 original. They almost were identical,... with the exception of this one recipe. "Duffy's 1934 Zombie" is a phantom,... created by an understandable but mistaken assumption.
:down: page 209, 1934 and 1940 versions :down:

"The rum's the thing..."

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2013-08-22 13:01 ]

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2013-08-23 06:59 ]

That was a great discovery, Limbo! Good cocktail archaeology!

Excellent research! I think you've put the topic to rest.

Ah, thanks, gentlemen! I finally feel that I've justified my existence, by making a meaningful contribution to the world, which may some day be immortalized as a footnote in the scholarly study of the Zombie!

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2013-08-21 17:21 ]

Let me tell you a Zombie story...

Like most of us, back in the dark ages of the turn of the century, I had made up and drank a Zombie. It was an awful drink with the horrid exclamation point of Bacardi 151 at the end. One was enough and that thing was never made again. I can still taste it in my mind!

In 2003, I tried the Mai-Kai Zombie for the first time and really loved it, but it was no Zombie, it tasted great! For years I urged others to try it. Otto loved it too for sure.

Then Jeff Berry gave his presentation at Hukilau on his years of struggling to find the real Zombie recipe. He knew that that drink was Donn's signature and it set off the Tiki craze. As wonderful as the other Donn drinks were, the Zombie must be a great drink too. So that Bacardi thing was not it. After a solid 10 years of research, he had found the original recipe.

I was handed that drink in the seminar and one sip and I thought "This is the Mai-Kai recipe!" The drink I thought was nothing like a Zombie, had turned out to be THE Zombie! Right there under our noses!

A couple of years ago I got Mariano's Zombie recipe, written in his own hand. Comparing it to the recipe in Sippin' Safari, I saw it was exactly the same. The Mai-Kai Zombie really was the original, kept intact since 1956, long after the last Don the Beachcomber's closed and Donn passed away. It is still there, keeping the spirit of Tiki alive!

When I first scanned this post, I thought it said, "In the dark days of the mid-century" and thought:

Holy Hell! How old is Swanky??

:)