The Manhattan: Weekend Cocktails at the Tiki Bar

Ready for the weekend kids? We sure are at the Tiki Bar! Since out last post was on some sophisticated Latin Jazz, lets Jazz the weekend up with some sophisticated cocktails…

The typical Manhattan calls for rye whiskey and sweet vermouth. Here are two twists on the original:

Bourbon Manhattan

3/4 oz sweet vermouth
2 1/2 oz good bourbon whiskey (I’d go with Maker’s Mark)
1 dash bitters
1 maraschino cherry
1 twist orange peel

Pour the booze and bitters over the rocks and stir gently. Add the Cherry; twist the orange into the drink and ditch the peel. A little sweeter and smoother than the traditional drink.

The Manhattan Cocktail. Old-style is served in a rocks glass.

Southern Comfort Manhattan

1 1/2 oz. Southern Comfort
1/2 oz dry vermouth
dash bitters
Cherry

Stir with cracked ice, strain into a glass (also good on the rocks). Drop in the cherry and you’re good to go with a ’60s style cocktail that will make the southern belles melt.

Either of these splashes would be a great accompaniment to the sultry tunes presented in our previous post.

-Tiki Chris reporting from the Tiki Bar

Tiki Drinks for the Weekend at The Tiki Lounge

A friend of mine from Twitter, Jen at Liberty Images suggested posting Tiki Drinks for the Weekend…I dug the idea so I’ll try to get a new one up every Friday…

I thought we’d do something nice for the Fourth of July. Our founding fathers hadn’t yet discovered the wonders of the South Pacific, and you never see a Moai in the painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so here’s something we could send back to the white-wig daddies that would tickle their feather pens…

The Red, White & Blue Cocktail

Here’s the recipe, direct from Drink of the Week:

“Created at Molyvos in NYC, this Independence Day cocktail uses macerated strawberries, vodka, Cointreau and blue curacao. When all put together with a white-sugar rim, you have quite the 4th of July treat.

Red, White, & Blue Cocktail

2 oz Oval Vodka
3/4 oz Cointreau
3 Table Spoon of Macerated Strawberries (See Recipe)
A Splash of Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
A Splash of Blue Curacao

Sugar the rim of a chilled martini glass. Combine all ingredients except the blue curacao in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into the martini glass. Drop in a splash of blue curacao.

Macerated Strawberries

1 Pint of Strawberries, washed and sliced
1 tablespoon of sugar
dash of balsamic vinegar”

By The Way, Liberty Images has some very kool vintage-style and retro artistic photography. Check them out at their Etsy store: Libery Images.

New Entry: Just found a recipe for a Red, White & Blue Shot:
(This is a layered shot)
•    1/3 oz grenadine
•    1/3 oz peach schnapps
•    1/3 oz blue curaçao
layered in that order. Althrough the schnapps isn’t white. I wonder if iced Sambuca would float the same way. That at least would be white. Anyway it sounds good.

-Happy 4th of July Weekend from Tiki Chris/Tiki Lounge Talk, the Tiki Culture Blounge for Retro Kats & Kittens.

New Booze for the Tiki Bar: DeKuyper’s Key Largo Schnapps Liqueur

Ah, the Tiki Good Life

I honestly don’t know if this stuff is brand new (Bought it last night, but it’s nowhere to be found on the DeKuyper website) or if I’ve just missed it. Either way, it’s new to me, so here we go…

DeKuyper’s Key Largo Schnapps Liqueur Review

The Label says it mixes tropical flavors with island breezes or something…Ok, I was already into some rum when I tried to read the damned thing…anyway tasting it straight up (which I never recommend for anything intentionally made for mixing, unless it’s to get an idea of the flavor…translation, don’t do this as shots) it has an extremely sweet, vaguely citrus flavor with a silky, syrupy feel. It’s not as orangey as Triple Sec, not as strong as coconut rum. It’s clear, so it won’t screw up your drink’s color. Basically a sweet, mellow, fruity liqueur that adds a nice flavor without overpowering the drink.

Key Largo Liqueur by DeKuyper

The Bottle:

Clearly I only bought this ($9.99 at Winn Dixie) because of the bottle. No Floridian Tiki Bar should be without any booze that has “Key”, “Tiki” or “Parrot” in the name. On that same note, Anything bright green, blue or orange is also required. This bottle has Key in the name and parrots on the label. Fannnntastic.

Recipes for this stuff range from simply mixing with OJ and grenadine to a nice sounding concoction called the Key Largo Kooler. There’s not much about it online (which is why I suspect it is fairly new…either that or hopelessly unpopular). I tried it with the orange juice and thought it wasn’t bad, although a little too sweet for my taste (and way to sweet to be considered a real, Exotic Tiki bar cocktail, although the potential is there with some tinkering). The krazy thing is, with all the other flavored brandies and liqueurs in the world, I’m not sure stocking this stuff for drinking purposes is necessary. But for ten clams, it sure looks great next to the Tiki idol on the bar.

Have you tried this booze? Leave a comment with your recipe or…well, comments!

-Tiki Chris reporting from the floor in front of the bar after too many Zombies.
Tiki Lounge Talk, the Tiki Culture Blog for swingin’ hipsters and hep kats.

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Banana Sling - New Tiki Drink Recipe at The Tiki Bar!

Aloha Tiki friends, I concocted a kookie new drink recipe tonight that I think you swingers will enjoy. Behold,

THE BANANA SLING

You probably think this is going to be sweet and gooey. It is not. We’re talking about some complexity that I didn’t expect when I started throwing stuff together. What you’ve got is a rum and fruit juice drink with a hint of banana. Read on…

2 oz Sailor Jerry spiced rum
1 oz Amaretto
1/3 oz Banana liquor
3 oz Orange Juice
1 oz Pineapple Juice

I built it all in a shaker, in the order you see here, then shook it up real good with ice, poured in a TALL Tiki mug over ice cubes and served it up. I didn’t have anything to garnish with, but I think a nice wedge of pineapple and a slice of orange would have been perfect. (Make sure you don’t over do it with the banana. You might want to add it in a little at a time, too much will make this drink taste like a pie).

The taste was unexpectedly strong, not sweet. The high-proof rum had a lot to do with that, and balanced out the amaretto very nicely. The fruit juices finished it off, and you get just a hint of banana as an aftertaste. Definitely sweeter than a zombie or mai tai, but not syrupy or sugary. Plus two of these will knock you on your ass. Good stuff for sitting at the Tiki Bar…just don’t try to walk afterwards…

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Tiki Bar!

To The Tiki Lovers, Pirates, Retro Hipsters and Swingers…

Have a Happy & Fun Valentine’s Day!

Here’s a very romantic recipe for a Chocolate Martini…

And here’s a few old-fashioned Valentine’s to remind you of the good old days…