Drinks and Syrups by Donn Beach

I set about trying to collect a list, then a recipe collection, of drinks and syrups known to be invented by Donn Beach. Here is my list. I'm interested in additions, corrections, comments.

Beachcomber's Gold, Beachcomber's Punch, Cobra's Fang, Demerara Dry Float, Donga Punch, Donn's Mix, Don's Daiquiri, Don's Own Grog, Don's Own Planters, Missionary's Downfall, Navy Grog, Never Say Die, Pearl Diver, Port Au Prince, Pupule, Q.B. Cooler / Mai Tai (Disputed), Sumatra Kula, Test Pilot, Three Dots and a Dash, Vicious Virgin, Zombie (1934)

[ Edited by BobH on 2025-04-19 10:38:06 ]

[ Edited by BobH on 2025-04-19 10:38:42 ]

There are lots more. Recommend you get the Beachbum Berry books "Sippin' Safari" and "Beachbum Remixed."

I have been using Google Gemini and Chat GBT as my research source. Here is what they say about the "Santiago":

There is a connection between Donn Beach and a person named Santiago, but it's not a direct connection to a "Santiago cocktail" as an invention of his. The connection comes from the discovery of one of his famously secret recipes.

In 2005, a woman named Jennifer Santiago came forward with her father Dick's drink recipe notebook. Her father had worked at Donn the Beachcomber's for 15 years and kept the recipes for many of the bar's famous drinks, which were kept secret and even encoded to prevent rivals from stealing them.

The notebook, which was discovered in Dick's shirt pocket after his death, was a critical piece of the puzzle for "Beachbum" Berry, a cocktail historian who had spent years trying to decode Donn Beach's recipes. While the recipes were still in a form of code, the notebook was instrumental in revealing the true ingredients of one of Donn's most famous creations, the Zombie.

So, while Donn Beach did not invent the Daisy de Santiago cocktail, a person with the last name Santiago was crucial in preserving the history and recipes of his famous tiki drinks.

Since my last post, I have refined my list with the following restrictions to make it manageable:

1. An original recipe by Donn Beach.
2. No adaptations of another's recipe, e.g. Dr Funk.
3. Not created by one of his employees.
4. Same drink with two names gets listed once with an "aka".

With that in mind my list stands at 28 cocktails and 3 mixes. I'll post the list next time.

P.S. I have Jeff Berry's books. They contain many more Tiki drinks than just Donn Beach's.

Second P.S. Yes, there are many variations. Too many to handle. I limited myself to the original or the single closest thing to the original.

Third and last P.S. Trader Vic won the court fight over the Mai Tai and the International Bartenders Ass'n acknowledges Vic's victory. So the Mai Tai is off my list.

Fun pursuit! I suggest being very cautious though using those AI tools for doing sleuthing around fringe topics. They are prone in my recent work experience to fill in the blanks with made up information and fabricate citations on topics where there isn't a lot of source material. And some of the source material it's learned from will be the great body of misinformation on tiki (see most Mai tai recipes on restaurant menus). An obscure and contentious subject including who created which tiki drink I would count as a risky subject to investigate with a LLM like ChatGPT.

Hello JamaicaRumAndrew,

I appreciate your response. I know AI is flawed, aren't we all, but it is the best I have without turning this hunt into a lifetime passion. Be that as it may, here is my list. I'll entertain additions or deletions with substantiation.

Beachcomber's Gold_1 / Beachcomber's Gold_2 / Beachcomber's Punch / Beachcomber's Rum Barrel / Cobra's Fang / Daiquiri - Mona aka Don's Special / Demerara Dry Float / Donga Punch / Grog - Don's Own / Grog - Coffee / Grog - Navy / Island of Martinique / Missionary's Downfall / Montego Bay / Mystery Gardenia / Nui Nui aka Pupule / Pearl Diver aka Don's Pearl / Pi Yi / Planter's - Don's Beach Planter / Planter's - Don's Own Planter's / Q.B. Cooler / Sumatra Kula aka Sumatra Cooler / Tahitian Rum Punch / Test Pilot / Three Dots and a Dash / Vicious Virgin / Zombie (1934 and 1950) / Mix - Don's Mix aka Paradise Blend / Mix - Don's Gardenia Mix aka Coffee Grog Batter / Mix - Cinnamon Syrup.

[ Edited by BobH on 2025-09-05 10:13:06 ]

[ Edited by BobH on 2025-09-05 10:15:20 ]