Mai Tai / Zombie hybrid, straight up with a slice of apple.
For those times when you can only have one, but you can’t make up your mind.
How To Make: Mai Tai
- 35ml of dark Jamaican rum
- 25ml of aged rum
- A glug of orange curaçao
- A dash of sugar sirop
- A glug of orgeat (almond) sirop
- 35ml of freshly squeezed lime juice
- 35ml of orange juice
- A dash of cinnamon & nutmeg (optional)
- Preferred glass would be a wine glass, or a highball
- Garnish with tropical fruits
Shake everything with ice. Strain into a wine glass, or pour it all into a highball glass if you want the ice. Garnish with tropical fruits and dress up in anything that you might wear on your body if you found yourself in Tahiti. Finish with a few straws, and drink while staring at the horizon.
Note that I add nutmeg and cinnamon as an optional ingredient. This is because I've been forever harping after an elusive rum punch that I was served in a really crappy hotel in the Caribbean. I reckon that this was the secret ingredients, and I tend to add these spices to anything with rum and fruit juices.
I still long to recreate that drink...
How To Make: Zombie
- 25ml of white rum
- 25ml of amber rum
- A glug of Malibu rum
- A glug of apricot brandy
- 25ml of fresh lime
- 50ml of pineapple juice
- A dash of cinnamon
- A dash of nutmeg
- A dash of Angostura
- A dash of grapefruit bitters
- A dash of grenadine
- A glug of dark rum
- A glug of overproof rum (if you want it on fire)
- Preferred glass would be a Hurricane, or very large wine glass
- Garnish with anything tropical, fruity, and Hawaiian-looking
This is more of a mid-week Zombie, as it's a little weaker than a typical Zombie. Maybe we can call it a Mini-Zombie...
Shake the white and amber rum, Malibu, apricot brandy, fresh lime, pineapple juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, Angostura and grapefruit bitters (basically everything apart from the dark - or overproof - rum & grenadine) in a cocktail shaker with loads of ice.
Prepare your garnish, tropical fruits all stacked on a cocktail stick, and the finest cocktail cliche perhaps: a cocktail umbrella.
Strain the drink into the glass, and let through a few rocks of ice if your going to savour it slowly. Sink a dash of grenadine to the bottom, and float the dark rum on top. Add the garnish to the rim of the glass, and stick in a straw.
Squeeze a wedge of lime into the drink, and bottoms-up!
If you've floated overproof rum on top, skip the cocktail umbrella, dim the lights and light it on fire. Drink through the straw, and keep your hair clear of the inferno. Avoid using hairspray.
Then, go to bed. You've got work in the morning.