Did you know that tiki cocktails started as a genius marketing idea? Yes, they’re delicious, too, and yes, tiki lounges done right, with all the bamboo, fake thatch, knickknacks, and kitsch, are a wonderful escape from the humdrum of everyday life. But, to borrow a description from the New York Times, the inventors – “a few white guys in California…took rum from the Caribbean, food from Asia and iconography from the Pacific Islands, put ‘em all in a blender, strained the results, and called it tiki.”
One of those guys was Ernest Gantt, popularly known as Donn Beach, who opened Don the Beachcomber in 1933. The Southern California bar is the birthplace of tiki drinks, and many we consider classics came from this mothership. As with any good idea, others took up the challenge of improving the originals, and the list of what constitutes a tiki drink runs into dozens of cocktails, perhaps reaching more than a hundred.
The Tiki Build
The basic build hasn’t changed much: rum (preferably), fruit juice, sugar in some form, gaudy garnishes, and occasionally, bitters, especially Angostura bitters. Half the fun of making your own tiki drinks is experimenting with the different flavor profiles you can get from using light rum, dark rum, spiced rum, Caribbean versus South American rum, and on and on.
The other factor that can change the flavor profile dramatically is what form of sugar you use. There are two that matter for our purpose here: orgeat and falernum. Both add sweetness and different flavor notes depending on the recipe. Tinctures, which we’ll get to add flavor without sugar, are a very useful component when you want to punch up citrus or spice without adding sweetness. While you can typically purchase these syrups ready-made, all are easy enough to make at home.
Orgeat
Orgeat is a syrup with almonds as its base. The other flavor component in traditional orgeat is orange blossom water, an ingredient readily available at Asian markets or from online merchants. Depending on your preference, the almonds can be blanched or toasted; the latter adds color, bitterness, and a toasted nuttiness that contributes richness to a tiki cocktail. To make your own at home, start with this basic recipe and then vary the ingredients to suit your taste.
2 cups Almonds (toasted or blanched), chopped fine in a food processor
1 ½ cups Sugar
1 ¼ cups Water
1 tsp. Orange blossom water
Add sugar and water to a saucepan and cook on medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture boils slightly. Add crushed almonds and simmer until the mixture boils.
Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for a minimum of 3 hours. The longer you let it sit, the more almond flavor will be present in the syrup, but so will the bitter notes, so don’t go beyond about 8 hours maximum.
Strain the mixture through 2-3 layers of cheesecloth after it cools, and then stir in orange blossom water. Funnel into small bottles with tight seals and refrigerate. The mixture should be good for at least a week if kept refrigerated.
Falernum
Falernum has lime as its base flavor, but it contains almonds and cloves too. With falernum, it’s normal to get a little more adventurous with the ingredients than you would with orgeat. The primary way to vary orgeat’s flavor is to substitute pecans, walnuts, peanuts, or other nuts. With falernum, just add other desirable flavors, like ginger or allspice, to make the cocktail more complex. To make falernum at home, follow this basic recipe. Please note: it’s a multi-day recipe, so you don’t need all the ingredients on the first day.
⅓ cup Toasted almonds, chopped or slivered
24 Whole cloves
½ cup Overproof white rum
6-8 Limes
⅔ cup Water
½ cup Sugar
Place the almonds and cloves in a mason jar with the rum, seal and store in a cool, dark place for 48 hours. For less clove flavor, steep for 24-40 hours instead of the full 48 hours.
Zest the limes when the mixture is ready, and be careful not to get pith in the zest; it will just add more bitterness. Add lime zest to the jar, seal, and let steep for a day. In addition to the lime zest, any other ingredients should be added at this time, including ginger, other citrus zest, allspice berries, or cinnamon sticks.
Juice four limes and add the juice to a saucepan with water and sugar. Bring to a boil on medium heat and cook until sugar is dissolved. Strain jar ingredients through 2-3 layers of cheesecloth and add to the saucepan. Stir and let rest until ready to use. You can store a fresh batch in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
Tinctures
Tinctures are an excellent way to punch up the flavor with a minuscule amount of liquid. In fact, once you’re finished preparing it, you should store it in a bottle with an eye dropper or pinhole spout because a drop or two in a cocktail is typically plenty. Another option is to store in an atomizer so you can simply spritz the tincture on top of the drink.
A tincture is simply an herb, spice, flower, or fruit pulp macerated in a high-proof neutral spirit. Follow this basic recipe to make it at home, and experiment with flavor combinations per your own taste. Dried botanicals add much more flavor than fresh, so use about two-thirds the amount of dry as fresh.
Botanicals (herbs, spices, flowers, or fruit pulp)
Unflavored, high-proof neutral spirit, like King St. Vodka
Fill a jar half to three-quarters full with botanicals. Add the high-proof neutral spirit, ensuring all ingredients are completely covered. Seal the lid and place it in a cool, dark place. Shake the mixture a few times per day, and taste each day until it achieves desired flavor intensity.
Strain through 2-3 layers of cheesecloth, and pour into a small bottle. Tinctures are shelf stable due to alcohol content, so no refrigeration is required, but they should still be stored in a cool, dark place.
In Closing
Having these three ingredients on hand will add an endless variety of flavors to your favorite tiki cocktails and might even lead you to an original that you craft yourself. Tiki cocktails are perfect year-round, so don’t miss out on crafting these ingredients when it’s cold outside. If you need some inspiration for where to get started, try a Mai Tai (orgeat), a Forbidden Cooler (falernum), or simply spritz your tincture over your Painkiller to create added depth and flavors.
