u/TibaltLowe

I visited The Lucky Tiki in Highland Park for the second time the other week and was craving a cocktail with Jamaican rum and banana liqueur. Unfortunately they don’t have a cocktail on their menu that uses both of those ingredients, but the bartenders were happy to go off-menu for me. They took the creative liberty to make me a Planet of the Apes, a cocktail I never had before. Having enjoyed it, I found the recipe online and made my own tonight.

Here’s the recipe I used:

1 oz Coruba Rum
.5 oz Smith & Cross Rum
.75 oz Tempus Fugit Banana Liqueur
1 oz Fresh Pineapple Juice
1 oz Fresh Orange Juice
.5 oz Fresh Lime Juice

I flash blended this cocktail with my Hamilton Beach Number 30 drink mixer and served it in my Three Dots and a Dash barrel mug. I garnished it with a couple pineapple fronds, a skewered cherry, a skewered brûléed banana slice, a monkey, and finished it with a straw from Surfside Sips.

I found this cocktail to be orange-forward (probably from the overripe oranges I freshly juiced for this cocktail), slightly tart, undertones of Jamaican funk, and a bit of baking spice and banana on the end. I’d say this one falls somewhere between refreshing and dessert-y, so it’s quite well rounded.

Cheers.

I’ve been holding off on trying this cocktail for quite some time because I learned of the existence of this really cool Tiki Farm Rongorongo mug, and knowing I wanted the mug, I figured I’d wait until I had one to make this Smuggler’s Cove modern classic.

Here’s the recipe I used:
- .75 oz Planteray Xaymaca Rum
- .75 oz Stiggins’ Pineapple Rum
- .75 oz Planteray O.F.T.D. Rum
- .75 oz Pineapple Juice
- 1 oz Fresh Lime Juice
- .75 oz BG Reynolds Cinnamon Syrup (Light pour since this stuff is sweet)
- 1 Dash of Angostura Bitters

In proper tiki fashion, I flash blended this in my Hamilton Beach Number 30 drink mixer and served it over pebble ice in my brand new Tiki Farm Rongorongo mug. I garnished it with what I’ve heard is Smuggler’s Cove go-to, which is mint and an orchid (fresh from the vine), and finished it off with a Moai Surfside Sips straw (very fitting).

This cocktail is more on the refreshing end of the spectrum with a bit of spice from the cinnamon syrup while remaining quite tart and dry. Despite the heavy pour of rum, it’s not very proofy.

Cheers.

I saw someone post the “Zombie King” here the other day and immediately thought it would be right up my alley. I poked around a bit more and found that the recipe shared is actually a riff on Strong Water’s Zombie King, but it sounded great regardless, and I couldn’t find Strong Water’s actual recipe, so I tried to match the recipe found in the other post.

Here’s the recipe I used:

1 oz Hamilton Pimento Dram

1 oz Planteray Cut & Dry Coconut Rum

1 oz Gosling’s Rum

.5 oz Hamilton 86 Rum

1 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Pineapple Juice

.5 oz Cinnamon Syrup

4 Dashes of Angostura Bitters

2 Dashes of Walnut

The mug is TikiLand Trading Co.’s “Hermit’s Trophy”. The bone straw is from Surfside Sips, and the light up swizzle is Barebones Tiki’s Original Sea Light Swizzle.

The cocktail is surprisingly not as complex as I thought it’d be, and is citrusy, tart, has some baking spice character, and is herbaceous.

Cheers.

In the midst of my tiki revival, I’ve picked up a beautiful Hamilton Beach number 30 drink mixer in solid condition from eBay. I’d love to put some time into restoring it to ensure it both looks and runs like new. I imagine I can do a lot of the work myself, but I’m all ears if anyone knows a specialized restorer in the Los Angeles area who works with these old mixers. Cheers!

Expanded the home bar to be able to throw a killer tiki night and break in the new TikiLand Trading mugs and Bare Bones Tiki garnishes. All of these bottles are new to me except the Coruba and will vastly expand what I’ll be able to make at home. I also ordered a ton of mint and a handful of orchids from Restaurant Depot to top it all off and do it proper. Cheers!

Today’s mail brought some of the coolest tiki mugs I’ve ever seen and now own. TikiLand wasn’t previously on my radar (see more history below), so upon discovery of their mugs, I knew I needed some! For my first order, I went with TikiLand Trading Co.’s “Whoopsies”, which are mugs that come with a slight discount for supposedly having cosmetic flaws (none of which I could find). Tons of their mugs were really awesome, but I went with their “Hermit’s Trophy”, “Thor’s Parrots of the Caribbean”, and the “Lost’s Petrified Puffer”. The look, feel, and quality seem great, and I can’t wait to use them! Everything was packaged well and they arrived quite fast.

For some backstory and context, I got into tiki years back and ended up in a bit of an at-home tiki lull where I’ve been hitting tiki bars throughout the years, but stopped buying bottles, mugs, and altogether quit making drinks at home. Well, Bare Bones Tiki ended up on my radar after stumbling across a sale post on this subreddit a couple months back, and thinking their garnishes were some of the coolest I had seen, and with them being on sale, I bought some of their products and was pleased with the look and quality. This purchase set in motion a bit of an at-home tiki revival for me, and I’ve been buying up new rum and liqueur bottles, garnishes, straws, tools, and tiki mugs.

Cheers!

My latest shipment of beer just arrived, so of course I gotta share what I picked up. This haul’s a little smaller than usual and is basically all hazies with only a single stout. I generally have a relatively even split, but I’ve been drinking fewer stouts lately, so I’ve still got quite a few on hand. I’m most curious to try the Drekker hazies and am most excited to try the RARxBottle Logic collab. As usual, these are all new to me, but I’ve now tried a handful of these breweries. Have you tried any of these, how were they? Swipe for a closer look at the beers. Cheers!

Somehow Pure Project flew under the radar for me until recently. I stopped into their North Park location and was blown away by the location itself and, of course, the beer. I did a 5-beer flight that included (from left to right) Diamond Dust, Thousands of Money, Encrypted Sequence, Planifola, and Phoenix Nox. Out of the lot, my two favorites were Encrypted Sequence and Phoenix Nox.