Each year during Tiki Month, I conduct a number of unlicensed laboratory experiments on human subjects have a few friends over to try out new recipes I’ve run across. This year I want to blog the ones that come up as winners, in that they are the ones that everybody is ordering by the end of the night.

Winner number two from lab session one this year is the Luau. This nifty number is a variation on the classic Luau Grog, minus the ice cone, created by Gerry Corcoran at PDT, and published in the eponymous book. Like the other winner from this session, I found this one via a heads up from Fred Yarm. (Spoiler Alert: There are a lot of drinks I’m trying this year that will include hat tips to Fred….)

LUAU (For PDT’s exact recipe, see the book)

• 3/4 oz Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum
• 3/4 oz El Dorado 8 Yr.
• 3/4 oz Dos Maderas
• 1/2 oz fresh lime
• 1/2 oz passion fruit syrup
• 1/4 oz orgeat
• 1 dash Angostura

Shake thoroughly with ice. Strain into a whimsical Tiki mug, top with crushed ice, and garnish with orange and mint. (p.168, PDT Cocktail Book)

This drink really illustrates one of the great joys of Tiki: blending rums. The non-alcoholic ingredients form a nice bed frame for this drink, the but the star attraction is the weird, delicate dance of three disparate rums. I’m sure there are better trios than I chose (including the three specified by PDT, no doubt), but any reasonably informed selection of three high quality rums with different pedigrees will likely make this drink sing.

On my †, ††, or ††† scale of Tiki drink potency, the Luau rates just a ††, but comes across as a †††. It’s boozy on the tongue. For a Tiki drink, it is quite spirit-forward.

The post Tiki Winners 2017 Part II: The Luau appeared first on The Pegu Blog.