The Dead Reckoning (Smuggler's Cove Recipe)

 

This Tiki cocktail is part of the Tiki revival movement--balanced but rich, classic ingredients, but made for the new Tiki bar scene. According to Martin Cate, a lot of restaurants have adopted something similar to this popular cocktail on the menu at his Smuggler's Cove.

You don't see all that many Tiki drinks with maple syrup (behind the glass). Nor did old-school Tiki drinks feature infusions like Smuggler's Cove. This drink has a vanilla infused brandy. I got around it by adding some vanilla infused vodka (that I always keep around for these occasions) to some cognac for a more than passable substitute. 

The experience is like I said above--balanced. A modern Tiki has the richness of the rum flavor as well as the lightness of soda and fresh citrus and fresh squeezed pineapple juice. There are no artificial mixers or canned juices involved, and it shows. I'm featuring George Bowman rum for the first time on my home bar as a great blended aged rum with all the Caribbean flavors of Guyana and Jamaica. It's going to be my main aged rum until I finish it off. 

One last note on preparation: the recipe includes directions for a drink mixing machine, which I don't have, but I was able to replicate a flash blend with agitator cubes in a shaker with pre-crushed ice. I'll include the recipe as written, but the photo in the book shows that this use of the mixing machine really gives you varied sizes of ice, which you can see in my photo above. Some tiny chips, some chunks, and some pretty big cubes. Just pre-crush some ice into tiny chips and lightly crush some cubes and load all of the chips and some of the cubes into the shaker tin and shake. When you strain, open the gate to allow the small and medium-sized pieces to flow into a glass that's already half-full of crushed ice and you are golden.

• 2 oz. blended aged rum (George Bowman used)
• 1/2 oz. tawny port (Porto Morgado used)
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1 oz. pineapple juice
• 1/2 oz. vanilla brandy
• 1/2 oz. grade A maple syrup
  
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 oz. seltzer
• pineapple leaves and mint sprig garnishes

Add seltzer to a Collins or highball glass. Fill the drink mixer with rum, port, vanilla brandy, juices and syrup. Add 12 oz. of crushed ice and 4-6 agitator cubes and flash blend. Strain the contents over the glass and fill the glass to the top with more crushed ice before adding the garnishes