Maeva, maita'i oe? That's how you'd say "Welcome, are you doing well?" in Tahiti. Tahiti is a key element in midcentury Tiki design, with their tapa cloth designs being woven into the literal fabric of many hawaiian shirt and bar decor designs. Their local architecture inspired restaurant designers and their traditional music has a wonderful and hypnotic rythmn.
For next week's Halloween eve maintenance, I'd like to share the most ghoulish tiki drink of them all: The Zombie.
Invented by Donn Beach of Donn the Beachcombers in 1934, this cocktail may not transform you into the living dead, but you may feel like it!
Below is the simplified version of the drink adapted by Tiki master historian Beachbum Berry. If you like any of these recipes, please go buy his masterwork: Beachbum Berry: Remixed. This guy singlehandedly revived the tiki drink genre by doing a lot of detective work tracking down the authentic recipes and the bartenders who invented them. It's a great read, with lots of great vintage photos of tiki bars through the years. If you've only been exposed to crummy too-sweet tiki drinks that have grenadine, orange juice and other junk in them, it's definitely worth picking up.
Zombie (simplified)
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz white grapefruit juice (fresh squeezed is recommended)
1/2 oz cinammon-infused sugar syrup*
1/2 oz 151 proof run (cruzan, el dorado or bacardi is most common) Most liquor stores will have smaller wino-sized flask bottles of these available
1 oz dark Jamaican rum (Myers is recommended for all tiki drinks)
Shake well with ice cubes and pour into a tall clear glass or appropriately skull shaped tiki mug.
*Cinammon-infused sugar syrup is very easy to make at home, and is recommended over spending a lot on a commercially produced one. To make this all you need is to crush 3 cinnamon sticks and place in a saucepan with 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Lower heat, cover saucepan, and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and, keeping it covered, let sit at least 2 hours before straining and bottling. It is also excellent for flavoring coffee!
As an update to our updates, we should be receiving data from our development team for the Eden Group level 100+ hunt quests very soon.