Afterburner Tiki Drink

My take on a less well-known resident of the Tiki drink kingdom.

Afterburner Tiki Drink
By Bill Lau | Potable Pastime

I see there are a few cocktails having the same name out there on the interwebs, all rather different. This one happens to be a Tiki drink (but of course!), based on a recipe found in the book Tiki Drinks: Tropical Cocktails for the Modern Bar by Nicole Weston and Robert Sharp (The Countryman Press, 2015). There are some of the usual suspects to be found here – rums, lime juice, orange liqueur – as well as several ingredients which combine to give the drink a lovely spice melange and exotic character.

I deviated from my reference recipe in a couple of areas for my version here; namely, it called for absinthe, which we (surprisingly) don’t happen to have in our inventory, and Angostura bitters (which we do have, but this was too perfect an opportunity for me to play with some special bitters that I recently acquired). We also recently wiped out our falernum syrup making the Passion Fruit Zombie, but had a bottle of Taylor’s Velvet Falernum, so I went with that. (The main difference being that the Taylor’s is alcoholic, though the amount is small enough that I don’t think it makes that big of a difference in the overall potency of the drink.)

(What’s that? You don’t know what falernum is? Well, once upon a time, I didn’t either. To elucidate – it’s a lovely combination of lime, ginger, clove and almond – typically – formulations can vary slightly; which hails from the Caribbean and appears in a number of Tiki drinks. There really is no suitable substitute that I know of, but if you can’t find it locally where you live, you can always order it online.)

At any rate, give this one a try and let me know how you like it!

Ingredients
• 1 & 1/2 ounces Blackwell Fine Jamaican Rum
• 3/4 ounce Cruzan light Aged Rum
• 1/2 ounce Ferrand Dry Curacao
• 1/2 ounce Taylor’s Velvet Falernum
• 1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/2 ounce simple syrup
• 3/4 teaspoon Pernod
• Dash Bittermens ‘Elemakule Tiki bitters

Method
1. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add all ingredients.
2. Shake well until ice cold; strain into a tall glass filled with crushed ice.
3. Garnish as desired and serve.

Disclosure: The author has received no reimbursement or compensation for this article. All opinions and remarks are those of the author alone. Specific brand references are the author’s personal preference.