Zombie Jamboree at The Mai-Kai

This year's Miami Rum Renaissance Festival begins with a killer seminar and cocktail contest dubbed the Zombie Jamboree at the legendary Mai-Kai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale on Monday, April 25, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Invented by Don the Beachcomber in the 1930s, the infamous Zombie cocktail took the world by storm more than 75 years ago. The host for the Zombie Jamboree is the preeminent authority on Tiki cocktails, and the Zombie in particular, Jeff "Beachbum" Berry.

The Bum will present his graduate-level thesis seminar on the creation - and the further evolution - of the Zombie, featuring samples of Don's classic 1934 and 1956 recipes. The seminar will be followed by demonstrations by several notable mixologists with their own variations of the deadly cocktail.

Find out how Don's original drink recipes stack up to fresh interpretations from contemporary Zombie masters using their favorite rums. Guests will be asked to place a pirate coin in the bucket of the drink they enjoy most. The winner will be crowned Zombie Master of Rum Renaissance 2011.

After the Zombie cocktail demonstrations, everyone is invited to stay for a fabulous dinner and exciting Polynesian style dance and fire show at The Mai-Kai.

The cost of the two-hour seminar and drink demonstration is $25. RSVP is required for attendance at the Zombie Jamboree and dinner. Call the Mai Kai at (954) 563-3272 to RSVP.

For more information:
http://www.rumrenaissance.com/ZombieJamboree.html

Facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103023413117240

Beachbum Berry:
http://beachbumberry.com

The Mai-Kai:
http://maikai.com

A huge mahalo to the Tiki community and everyone who came out to the Zombie Jamboree. It was a great night, from Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's first-ever Zombie seminar to the action-packed competition. Below are a few choice photos:

Taking the stage in The Mai-Kai's main dining room, Beachbum Berry begins his graduate course on the Zombie.

The Zombie Jam contest was fierce but fun for all. I was ably assisted by Nik Satterfield (left).

The Atomic Zombie Cocktail awaits the judges.

Although I didn't win, I was honored to participate and appreciative of all the great comments and support.

Check out my detailed first-person report and more photos here:
http://www.slammie.com/atomicgrog/blog/2011/04/30/we-be-jammin-rum-renaissance-zombie-fest-at-the-mai-kai/

I've also posted my Zombie recipe in much detail here:
http://www.slammie.com/atomicgrog/blog/2011/04/25/wake-the-dead-its-time-for-the-atomic-zombie-cocktail/

Aloha!

And some more pics courtesy of TornadoTiki:

http://tornadotiki.com/gallery/2011/042511/

And your zombie was a damn fine drink!

So, did anyone taste all the drinks and care to comment on the offerings?

HH - you and Nick did a great job at the jamboree and you certainly got my coin in your bucket (wait, does that sound a bit dirty....).

Seriously, I really enjoyed your drink and had a great time overall at this event.

I don't think all of the competitors had a proper enough understanding of the Zombie in order to put a proper twist on it. For example, some of the competitors were booze reps pushing company product and not necessarily tiki-drink geeks.

Not that this ncessarily makes for a bad drink (and actually just about all of the drinks were interesting if not decent - some too sweet), but some contestants seemed to just crank up the proofage on a cocktail that was not nearly a Zombie in order to make it "qualify" as such.

Of course it did not help anyone's cause that the crowd was voting after we all had consumed several Mai Kai libations during happy hour and the Bum's presentation....

I'm not an alcoholic, I'm an enthusiast.

[ Edited by: leisure master 2011-05-03 10:59 ]

Thanks everyone for the kind words! Next time, we just need to make sure we outnumber the booze reps.

Hurricane: TornadoTiki and I thought that your entry and the entry from the UK were the two best entries. All the rest seemed to be just overly sweet concoctions with a higher-than-usual booze content. And this may be blasphemy on this site, but I'm not a huge fan of either sweet or fruity drinks.

Being an engineer and someone who is known to over-think things (when I'm not drinking, that is), I had a hard time with the basic assumption of the event. What exactly qualified each drink as a "Zombie"? The UK entry didn't have rum, but a mixture of gins, and some didn't have a mixture of base liquors. And of course, ingredients were all over the place. So I was left with having a hard time determining which was the best "Zombie" since I didn't have a baseline of what characteristics determine a "Zombie" and it ended up, at least in my mind, on just a popularity contest on which drink tasted the best and not what was the best take on the Zombie.

I'm running into the same thing when preparing for the Hukilau competition. I'm hoping there are some more concrete guidelines on what will determine a "Barrel of Rum" vs. some drink that contains all the sponsored ingredients and just tastes good (read: sweet).

Don't worry, we'll have clear ground rules for the Rum Barrel Challenge and I'm sure the judges will hold everyone to the standards of the Mai-Kai's original. It's going to be a blast!