Cocktail-style Tiki drinks really have ended up being the central theme of exploration this Tiki Month, and here is another: The Captain’s Blood. Of course, both in name and in flavor, the Captain’s blood is more Pirate than Polynesian, but I’ll allow it. After all, pirate stuff has a long association with Tiki, just as spy-themed music and paraphernalia do. And Tiki’s patron saints, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic, were really pirates in all but the name. (They also omitted the bad hygiene and most of the old ultra-violence, but let’s not quibble)

There are all sorts of recipes for Captain’s Blood on the web, and aside from all pretty much containing rum, lime of some fashion, and usually bitters of some type, there seems to be no definitive recipe. I suspect that this is one of those drinks with a great name that has been reverse engineered from the memory of the taste countless times, and for which we shall never find a rock-solid origin or original formulation. I went with the one of CocktailDB, which has propagated the farthest on the web and which is the most nearly Tiki in character. I made two amendments, which I will explain.

The original CocktaiDB recipe calls for one dash of Angostura and a half teaspoon of sugar (roughly 1 tsp simple syrup). That result I found to be too thin, even sour, in flavor, especially if you are looking for a Tiki, or at least a Tiki Compliant, cocktail.
Increasing the bitters demonstrates that great, largely unappreciated by the masses, cocktail truth: Bitters in small amounts don’t increase the bitterness of a drink, they knock the edges off other outsize flavor elements instead. In this case, the extra bitters just sands down the sourness of the lime and falernum without hiding the underlying flavorful goodness.
I got the idea for the honey mix from Rumdood’s old post on homemade falernum. It was my choice to up the amount. I like the melding of the flavors resulting from the added sweetness, and the honey also gives a tiny bit of additional complexity. But make no mistake, this remains a tart drink. The honey also gives a tiny bit richer body to the cocktail, which I like as well. Next time I try it, I may even replace the honey mix with gomme syrup, to see how far I can take that effect.

The suggestion for this Tiki Month post from Jason McGrady, who presides over the mahogany at Sazerac Restaurant in the Hotel Monaco in Seattle, where Maggi and I stayed two Summers ago. What’s that? Yes, I keep in touch with bartenders I haven’t seen in two years. I keep track of an incredible number of good bartenders around the world whom I seldom actually see. You never know when I am going to have a sudden need for an agent to do me a favor and make me a good drink. I’m like the Shadow that way.

“Someday, bartender, I will need a Manhattan from you….”
Source: Alex Sheikman

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

I’d like to thank Rowan, in the sense that he is one of my fellow bloggers who is helping turn this year’sTiki Month into something of a month-long, slow-rolling, Mixology Monday-type blog carnival.

I’d also like to thank Rowan, in the sense of “Thank you sooooo very much for this festive earworm you’ve given me!” in his latest effort.

Yeah, he calls this drink the FM. And yeah, it’s good. It is a nicely musky mix of grapefruit and chocolate that makes a very effective drink for after-dinner relaxation. It also gives me a use for that aging bottle of creme de cacao I’ve been storing.

Sip an FM, and you’ll endure no static at all. And now hopefully I’ve gotten rid of the worm by inflicting it on you. Be sure you follow the link to check the recipe, and Rowan’s far classier, less garishly Tiki photo.

Oh, and enlarge my photo to see how I embedded a paper umbrella stem in a solid block of ice; a metaphor for trying to jam an icepick in my ear to remove Steely Dan….

It took about a week.

Maker’s Mark has now completed the legendary and incredibly difficult New Coke Maneuver.

After backlash from customers, the producer of Maker’s Mark bourbon is reversing a decision to cut the amount of alcohol in bottles of its famous whiskey.

Rob Samuels, Maker’s Mark’s chief operating officer, said Sunday that it is restoring the alcohol volume of its product to its historic level of 45 percent, or 90 proof. Last week, it said it was lowering the amount to 42 percent, or 84 proof, because of a supply shortage.

“We’ve been tremendously humbled over the last week or so,” Samuels, grandson of the brand’s founder, said of customers’ reactions.
—NBC News (H/T: @TeeKeeMon)

I didn’t quite have the guts to predict this when I posted about it last week. You can see from the post title that I cut out a lot of my speculation, in part because it would have been so risky, and in part because I wanted to focus on the bind Maker’s was in economically and marketing-wise.

But I kinda think they pulled it off. Most giant corporate entities who try similar maneuvers, planned or not, (I’m looking at you Netflix and The Artist Formerly Known as Prince and Now Is Once Again Known as Prince™) fail like Hitler’s push on Stalingrad. But I’m betting Maker’s has pulled it off. And they pulled it off because of the fact that they were honest about why they made the move in the first place.

They had to do something, as I outlined before.

If they had just jacked up the price, with a few dry stories about supply constraints in business publications, customers would have just noticed the price increase and said, “Aw, sheeoot! Maker’s is so damned expensive alluva sudden. They’re a awfully proud of their product these days. I’ll be proud of my Jim Beam for less.”

If they had constrained supply, bars and restaurants would have stopped making it a staple brand. And cutomers not finding it on shelves would have said, “Hmmm. No Maker’s these days. I’ve always wanted to see what the fuss was with this Four Roses….”

If they’d just tried to quietly lower the proof with the bullcrud explanation that customers wanted less booze in their booze, as Jack Daniels (barely) got away with in an era before Twitter and FaceBook lynch mobs roamed the Earth, in this age, where Twitter and FaceBook lynch mobs roam the Earth, they would have been crucified with comments like this:

Alert drunkard Chris Sharp brought this unfathomable blasphemy to my attention and I feel it my sworn duty to bring it to yours.

“I was outraged,” says Sharp, a once avid Jack drinker. “They continue to claim in their ads that they stick to tradition. Tradition, my ass. If they think that people will take this sitting down they are sadly mistaken.”
—Modern Drunkard Magazine, on the Jack Daniels watering

But Maker’s pushed their decision big. They went out of their way to tell all their biggest customers what they were doing, and more importantly, why. And they were explicit with the press about the problem as the inevitable wave hit. And customers told them, in no uncertain terms, and in a way that everyone knew what everyone else was telling them, that, “Thank you, but we’d really prefer that you keep our whiskey the same, and try one of those other options.” (Please note the peculiar consumer deceit that it is “our” bourbon.) I disagree with the old adage that any publicity is good publicity, but Maker’s didn’t hunker down and stonewall through it, but made sure every reputable story about the situation made clear the problem was real.

Now Maker’s can go back to the old formula. The customers have essentially all told them “raise the price instead,” and they know they all told Maker’s that. If they see an intermittent shortage, they will know why. Maker’s has the consumer buy-in to take the long-term path out of a supply crunch.

Source: Bourbon Blog.
Follow the link for more on initial reaction to the 84 proof decision.

And now they have cases and cases of the best collector’s item bourbon out there. Bottles that will be bought, but not drunk. Most bottles sold at 84 proof will be sold right alongside a bottle of 90 proof that is meant to be drunk.

Did they mean to do this all along? Just as I’m not a Coca-Cola Classic Truther, I doubt (despite my suspicions this would end this way) they intended for this to happen. But they were smart. And they did lay the groundwork to retreat and get away with it. I think that they will.

Oh man, do I love this drink.
Rather than fighting his way through the savage natives of greater Van Nuys to unearth this recipe from a spider-filled attic of some bartender’s grandson, Indiana Beachbum Berry just up and created this one himself. Unlike the cocktail-style offerings which have comprised so many of the drinks that I have highlighted, and will continue to highlight, this Tiki Month, the Beachbum’s Own is a classic crushed ice, ceramic mug filler.

I’ve adjusted Jeff’s recipe slightly from the one appearing in Remixed to account for 151 being the only Lemon Hart Demerara we can get in the States right now. If you have a regular proof El Dorado or other aged demerara, use 1 1/4 oz.

Licor 43 (aka Cuarenta y Tres) is an underused liqueur in Tiki drinks, if you ask me. Richer, deeper, and boozier than vanilla simple syrup, it adds more complexity to any already complex drink. In this beverage, it really helps give a unique and different element.

A final word on the Beachbum’s Own, it is very classically Tiki in that there is a lot of alcohol in here, and it does not give much indication of this to the unsuspecting drinker. It’s no Zombie or Hurricane, but comport yourself with all due caution….

Hawaiian Karaoke?
No thanks, I’ve heard you sing.

Ha! I’ll have you know I used to be a soloist… when I was still a soprano… But no, Carioca was a bar in Puerto Rico in the Second World War. Let’s hope they didn’t have karaoke back then.

This is pretty simple little cocktail, and it definitely tastes less Tiki than many of the other drinks I’ve tried this year. It actually has Caribbean origins, so it makes sense that it work more like classic rum cocktails, rather than the Tiki drinks that descended from them.

Be sure to have a ball with the garnish, to help Tiki this little number up. It’s a rewarding sip, but as I said, it lacks the Pacific island funk I’d like in a February libation.

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!