A few months ago I came across a video for a drink called The Black Pearl that is made at The Cove Bar at Disney’s California Adventure theme park in Anaheim. I’d never had one but with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie reference I knew I had to give it a try.

It is fairly straight forward… half an ounce of gin, vodka and rum then add sour mix and “black berry liqueur”. Two things that made gave this a little trial and error… 1) I don’t really keep Chambord in stock and 2) they didn’t provide measurements for the chambour and sour mix. So I tucked the recipe away for some point in the future.

Last Saturday rolls around and some friends are at Trader Jay’s for the Florida Gator football game. I’m telling my buddy, Golden, about the Black Pearl and he offers to run back to his house to get… wait for it… his bottle of Chambord! And the mixing was on!

I decided that the Chambord was the key ingredient so I made it an equal pour to the other liquors (1/2 oz). Then I thought the sour mix should be enough to fill a rocks glass (1 oz combined with 2 oz of booze). To stretch it, you could add more sour (in the video it seems like at least 3 ounces), but where is the fun in that? Vodka and gin are pretty straight forward but the final decision was “type of rum”. Once again the video showed a white rum (probably Bacardi). There was some debate in the bar but The Trader ultimately decided that the BLACK Pearl should have Kraken Black Rum! (*See variation with Bacardi below)

The taste testing (and over a bottle of Chambord) confirmed that the mix was true! (Shout out to Justin for taking us to liquor store halfway through taste testing!)

Here is the full recipe that Trader Jay’s will be serving:

• 1/2 oz Kraken Black Rum
• 1/2 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin
• 1/2 oz Grey Goose Vodka
• 1/2 oz Chambord
• 1 oz sour mix

Pour all ingredients into shaker, shake and strain into rocks glass with ice.

All who partook in the taste testing agreed it was a flavorful, fresh drink but can really pack a punch. So give it a mix and a pour and let me know what you think in the comments.

Cheers and Aloha!

*Golden claims that he’s had a similar drink called a Grateful Dead with Bacardi replacing the Kraken. After some research, the Grateful Dead also include Tequila. The Trader will use Bacardi upon request via the Secret Menu. We will call that “The Black Pearl’s Dinghy”.