1.5 Oz 4 rum blend (2:2:1:1, denizen 8, flor de cana 7, S&C, lemon hart 151)
0.75 Oz campari
0.25 Oz 1:1 (Creole shrub, PF dry Curacao)
0.25 Oz date syrup (4:1 date syrup, water)
0.5 Oz lime juice
1.5 Oz pineapple juice (Aldi's nature's touch)
Multiplied by approx 17
Whip shook because i didn't want it getting overdiluted before serving.
Absolutely fantastic. Not at a tiki bar, but I was told that this drink was kind of tiki so I ordered it. Lo and behold, it comes in a proper tiki mug much to my surprise. The cachaca comes through as the base spirit with a little mezcal, making its presence known, detectable, but not obvious. Depending on the smokiness of the mezcal used, it would be anywhere between 0.5-1 oz by my educated guess. The pineapple orgeat is clearly a fresh juice based mix of fresh pineapple and orgeat rather than a pineapple liqueur base. I'm not sure if it's not just pineapple juice and orgeat. Pandan is present but does not dominate. Between the orgeat and the cachaca, the pandan is well balanced, and perhaps boosts the almond flavor of the orgeat, leaning into some heavy marzipan flavors that balance well with the cachaca. The pandan acts as a unique, present, but well disguised flavor for the uninitiated. Really a great and well crafted cocktail. I'm certainly impressed because we don't have that much for craft cocktails in this area and this is certainly a very thoughtful creation.
A while back in March, I was at a Mexican restaurant with friends. This Mexican restaurant had a full bar and a cocktail menu that listed cocktails other than margaritas. I try to gauge what I order based on what they have listed on their menu and the kind of establishment it is. The way I think about it is that cocktail menus are there to sell the cocktails they serve as well as set expectations for what they can do. They had proper mojitos, aperol spritz, I see Hendricks and other good gins on their back bar. We were seated at a table. I ordered a mojito from menu to start, both out of consideration for my table and for the server taking the order. For my second drink I ordered an aperol negroni with a double of Hendricks since a lot of bars around here don't seem to have campari these days. I also stuck to reordering the same drink the rest of the night to make things easier on the server. Ever since, at least one of my friends never lets me hear the end of this both for ordering off menu and for speccing out my drink. He equates what I did with going to a restaurant and ordering an entree that isn't on their menu. Usually for the trouble, I'll tip 25-30%. My friend thinks I'm basically a nightmare customer. The situation was made to look worse because our server was nowhere to be found most of the night except for when you could see him visibly flirting with some guy at the end of the bar. None of my friends are cocktail people so I'm guessing this seems odd for that reason alone, other than I was also waiting on condiments and another one of my friends couldn't even eat his food for a good five minutes because he had no silverware. Are my friends making a big deal out of this and if not, how far out of line am I?