Tartan on Your Tiki

Skye Tai

1.5 oz. Blended Scotch (Pig's Nose is great for this drink)
.75 oz. Amer Picon
.5 oz. Orgeat
.5 oz. Fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp. Absinthe
1 dash Fee's rhubarb bitters


Shake everything with ice and strain into double old-fashioned glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a lime slice and a cherry.




I've mentioned Thursday Drink Night before- It's the weekly online improvisational cocktail extravaganza where everyone is welcome to drop in, stick around as long as they like, and experiment with cocktail-making. I like to think of it as a jam session with booze instead of music. It's casual, friendly, and I guarantee it includes more references to Ting than any other chatroom you'll wander into. How's that for enticing?

A few weeks ago, the TDN theme was "Scotch", and I came up with the above recipe right around last call (sometimes the creative gears don't start turning until well into the night...TDN is funny like that). In any case, for reasons I'm still not entirely sure of, I was inspired to come up with a tropical-style drink. Scotch already has a reputation as being somewhat uncooperative in cocktails (with a few notable exceptions), so given my predilection to make difficult tasks even harder, I decided it would be a nifty challenge to see if I could get Scotch to behave itself in a tiki-ish cocktail.

I used the venerable Mai Tai as a loose template, retaining the lime juice and orgeat, but swapping in some new ingredients to take things in a different direction (toward the Hebrides, it seems). I'll be the first to admit it looks odd on paper (or screen), but it's gotten positive feedback from the intrepid souls who've tried it, so I'll consider it a keeper. Plus, it afforded me the opportunity to draw a tiki wearing a kilt and a Tam o ' Shanter, so really, the whole affair was out of my hands from the get-go.

Quick notes on some key ingredients:

1) I haven't empirically tested every blended Scotch out there, but I have found that Pig's Nose works wonderfully here. It's also great if you'd just prefer to dump it in a glass and enjoy it without fussing around with all the juice, syrup, ice and other miscellaneous distractions. As always, I encourage experimentation and investigation, and eagerly await your findings.

2) I haven't yet run across a commercially-made Amer Picon that I'm wild about, but the homemade stuff that my fellow boozeblogger SeanMike Whipkey of The Scofflaw's Den makes is fantastic, and it's what I use in this drink. His version is based on Jamie Boudreau's Amer Picon recipe, which just goes to show how incestuous the booze geek community really is.

If you want some, contact SeanMike directly. I hear he'll do just about anything in exchange for a case of Miller Lite.

One more thing- Since this post revolves around a quasi-tiki drink, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that for the second year in a row, The Pegu Blog has transmogrified into The Tiki Blog for the entire month of February*.





* February is the shortest month of the year, but since Doug posts approximately every 17 minutes, he makes up for it.

Save the Date...and Save the Whales!

If you haven't already seen a slew of other boozeblogs alerting us to the fact that tomorrow night (9/3) we celebrate the one-year anniversary of Thursday Drink Night, then here's the highlights:

~ TDN has been going on for a year, and we're celebrating!
~ There'll be a bunch of prizes awarded in a number of categories!
~ Jeff Berry and Martin Cate will stop by!
~ It's open to everyone, so don't be a wallflower!
~ Oh, and the theme is "tiki".


Speaking of tiki...

I've had this recipe kicking around for a while now. It came with a tiki mug I bought from the Queequeg Chapter of the Fraternal Order of Moai., which is an organization of fine, upstanding tiki freaks. I'd been meaning to make it for some time, and I finally rounded up most of the ingredients, so make it I did. Here's the recipe:

Queequeg's Harpoon

1 oz. Lemon Hart Demerara Rum (80 proof)
1 oz. Gosling's Black Seal rum
1 oz. Hurricane rum
.75 oz. lime juice
.75 oz. Queequeg's Blood*
.5 oz. simple syrup
.5 oz. club soda

Shake all (except club soda) w/ 8 oz. crushed ice. Pour into Queequeg MS Society mug. Add club soda. Garnish with cranberries and pineapple chunks on a bamboo spear. Repeat as necessary.

*Queequeg's Blood (cranberry syrup)

2 parts dried cranberries
1 part water
1 part cranberry juice (NOT from concentrate)
.5 part sugar
.5 part brown sugar
1 pinch whole cloves
1 three-inch cinnamon stick

Boil everything together at low heat, stirring constantly for 40 minutes. Let the mixture cool. Remove cinnamon stick. Blend mixture in blender until consistent. Strain multiple times through cheesecloth to remove particles. Bottle & enjoy!


Now the first problem I ran into was not having Hurricane rum, which is a small-batch, aged, slightly overproof gold rum that isn't exactly a commonplace item. Tiki guru extraordinaire Jeff Berry told me suitable substitutes would be something like a gold Puerto Rican (such as Bacardi 8) or amber Cruzan rum.

But because I like to ask people for advice and then not follow it, I subbed Old New Orleans Crystal rum and thought it worked fine. I also left out the club soda because it didn't really seem necessary.

The second problem I ran into is that even on paper, the "Queequeg's Blood" looks like a pain in the ass to make. I made it, and rest assured, it is. Plus, when I made it (using a "1 cup = 1 part" ratio), it yielded a paltry 3-4 oz. of liquid. So I came up with a recipe that's a lot less labor intensive, yields much more usable end product, and tastes the same in my opinion:


Queequeg's Blood (ver. 2.0)

1.5 cups dried cranberries
1.5 cups unsweetened cranberry juice
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
.5 cup brown sugar
15 whole cloves
2 three-inch cinnamon sticks

In a medium saucepan, bring everything to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved.. Lower heat, and simmer lightly for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool, strain and bottle. Yields approx. 2.5 cups liquid.

So when all this tinkering was concluded, I ended up making this:


Queequeg's Harpoon (12" dance remix)

1 oz. Lemon Hart Demerara rum (80 proof)
1 oz. Gosling's Black Seal rum
1 oz. Old New Orleans Crystal rum
.75 oz. lime juice
.75 oz. Queequeg's Blood (ver. 2.0)
.5 oz. simple syrup

Shake everything with cracked ice and strain into double old-fashioned glass or tiki mug filled with crushed ice. Garnish with cranberries and pineapple chunks on a bamboo spear.


So instead of punching holes in an innocent sea creature, gather up your giggle water and make a few of these. If that still doesn't satisfy your bloodlust, there's always Deadliest Catch.

Iberian Dawn, Trans-Europe Express, and Thursday Drink Night

As has been noted elsewhere, there’s a great gig that happens every week here in the electronic ether. It’s called Thursday Drink Night, and it attracts all manner of adult beverage enthusiasts. It’s open to everyone, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

What exactly is Thursday Drink Night? I like to think of it as something vaguely akin to the TV show Iron Chef…but with booze. And a lot more participants.

Every Thursday night, these drink-tinkerers gather in the TDN chatroom to swap recipes based around a theme. Many drinks are conceived on-the-spot, and everyone gets a chance to discuss the results. It’s a nifty, no-pressure social event that never fails to entertain and educate. Plus, there’s no cover charge! (but it is BYOB).

Periodically, TDN is sponsored, which gives the attendees the chance to chat with the people behind the brands showcased that particular week. This was the case recently when Sandeman kindly sponsored the festivities and everyone got to fiddle with port. Many drink recipes were spawned that night, and yours truly contributed a couple to the roster:


Iberian Dawn

.5 oz. Sandeman tawny 10 yr. old port
.25 oz. Cointreau
2 dashes Fee’s peach bitters
Sparkling wine (I recommend a brut cava )

Put first 3 ingredients in Champagne flute. Fill with cava and enjoy!



Trans-Europe Express

1 oz. London Dry Gin
.75 oz. Sandeman Founder’s Reserve
.5 oz. St. Germain elderflower liqueur

Build over ice in rocks glass and squeeze in a lime wedge. Stir and enjoy!


The Trans-Europe Express is a great example of just how fun TDN can be. Soon after I submitted the recipe, a few people commented that they thought the drink would be better served by using Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur instead of St. Germain. This new version was immediately whipped up, assessed, and declared to be a perfectly suitable variation by those who tried it (assuming I’m recalling things correctly…the later hours of TDN often don’t make it to memory 100% intact. Fortunately, transcripts are available). This spirit of communal trial-and-error is, for me, a fundamental part of what makes TDN so enjoyable.

(By the way, if you prefer the version with the Canton, it’s called the Trans-Siberian Express.)

So if you’ve got A) access to the Web, B) a halfway decent liquor cabinet, and C) some free time on a Thursday evening, swing by and get in on the fun! Click here to belly up to the bar.