• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

2 tsp. honey mixed with

2 tsp. hot water and chilled

¼ oz. falernum (optional)

1 dash Angostura bitters

¾ oz. 151-proof rum (optional) Pineapple slice, orange wedge, and maraschino cherry, for garnish

Makes 1 cocktail

1. Put 1½ cups ice cubes into a blender and crush. Add first 9 ingredients and blend on high speed. Pour into a tall glass.

2. Slowly pour 151-proof rum over back of a spoon into cocktail. Garnish with pineapple, orange, and cherry.

Polynesian Spirits

They don’t serve beer. They don’t serve wine. For weeks at a time, they don’t serve anything at all—whenever they feel like getting sand between their toes, they close up shop. The owners of the Tiki-Ti in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz are textbook examples of how not to succeed in the bar business; nevertheless, for over 49 years the Buhen family has been slinging Singapore Slings and Missionary’s Downfalls for a fanatical following. My first visit was in 1979. I’d previously dismissed tropical cocktails as slushy umbrella drinks, but the Tiki-Ti’s came with an impressive pedigree: many of them were invented at the country’s first tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber (opened in the mid-1930s), where Ray Buhen, a native of the Philippines, was one of the original bartenders. The Beachcomber attracted a Hollywood crowd and kick-started the midcentury Polynesian craze. Ray Buhen spent the golden age of tiki honing his craft behind some 60 different bars. In 1961, Ray; his wife, Geraldine; and son Michael (pictured) opened a place of their own. Ray died in 1999, but his spirit lives on at the Tiki-Ti.

—Jeff Berry

Hot Buttered Rum

This drink is a holdover from the colonial period in America, when the harsh edges of old-style rums were softened with the addition of warm butter, dark sugar, and spices. Made with the mellower aged rums available today, it is a smooth, rich, and soothing potion.

1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

¼ tsp. ground cloves Kosher salt, to taste

3 cups aged rum

Serves 16

1. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar with a hand mixer set on medium speed until smooth, 1–2 minutes. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and a pinch of salt and beat again to combine. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill mixture until ready to use.

2. To make 1 hot buttered rum, place 2 heaping tbsp. of the chilled butter mixture in an 8-oz. mug along with 1½ oz. rum and fill with boiling water. Stir to melt and mix ingredients; serve immediately.

Liquid Gold

Rum has always had a good-time reputation in the United States. Midcentury tiki lounges popularized the sugar-cane distillate in whimsical cocktails served in scorpion bowls, ceramic coconuts, and hollowed-out pineapples. Even so, rum is a spirit worth taking seriously. Aged varieties can be savored straight, offering a palette of citrus, vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, and stone fruit. Some of the finest examples are produced on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the only source of rum with its own Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, the certification created by the French government for quality agricultural products. The parameters for rhum agricole are steadfast: it must be made from sugarcane juice; have a relatively low proof; and when aged, it must be stored for three to 15 years in charred-oak barrels (like the ones pictured). Until the nineteenth century, sugarcane planters in Martinique distilled rum from molasses, a byproduct of sugar production. But when competition from sugar beets depressed demand for sugarcane, planters discovered that a distillate could be made from pure cane juice at a lower proof than molasses-based rum’s, allowing the pleasing flavors of the cane to shine through. Capitalizing on this new method, 150 distilleries flourished on Martinique in the nineteenth century. Today, only eight survive, but producers like Clément and Neissen make some of the finest rums in the world.

—Wayne Curtis

Spiced Wine

Glühwein

Warming cinnamon thoroughly suffuses