heading to venus

3/4 oz Tamarind Syrup (*)
3/4 oz Cinnamon Syrup
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Grapefruit Juice
2 dash Fee's Molasses Bitters (optional)

Shake with ice and strain into a tall glass with or without 2 oz soda water. Fill with crushed ice and garnish with Tiki intent including citrus peels (see text below) and freshly grated nutmeg.
(*) A 1/2 pound of tamarind concentrate makes a quart of syrup (when dissolved with hot 1:1 simple). 1/8 of that container (1 oz by weight) will make 4 oz tamarind syrup. Tamarind concentrate can be found in Indian supermarkets.
Last summer, I created a mocktail that was the two syrups and two juices above for a guest. A short while later, I knew that I had hit a magical tropical combination for that drink ticket asked for not only another round of that same mocktail but could their dining companion have it with booze? The drink with booze gained an amber rum component and took the form of a Jet Pilot that I called the Final Countdown when it hit the Yacht Rock Sunday menu (and later the main menu). To name the mocktail version, I took a line from that Europe song and dubbed this one the "Heading to Venus." The little Tiki man that I garnish with is a lime wedge pre-notched for a glass rim. In the notch, I insert a long snake-like forked tongue, and to the wedge, I add a pair of clove eyes.

jungle jim

1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
1/2 oz Chai Tea Syrup
1/2 oz Honey Syrup
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Lime Juice

Shake with ice, strain into a Collins glass with 3 oz soda water, and fill with ice. Garnish with a mint sprig and an orange peel snake.
A few weeks ago at Loyal Nine, I received a drink ticket for a mocktail and I scanned the room to figure out which seat it was. Often it is a lady or a teenager, but this time it was a 4-5 year old guest sitting with his parents at the chef's counter. One of the servers had already communicated that this kid was awesome, so I knew I had to make this special. I will post the first drink I made for him (which is one of my mocktail standards these days) later, but I needed something for his followup drink to out-do the first one. I based the flavor combination off of Don's Special Daiquiri which pairs honey and passion fruit syrups with lime juice. Instead of its rum, I opted for a bit of chai tea syrup and soda water, and I split the citrus into equal parts lime and lemon. For a garnish, I went tropical with a citrus peel snake that I mastered from making Cobra and other Tiki drinks at home. The cool part was that the snake sprang out a bit when the ice was jostled with the straw!

cola libre

1 1/2 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Cinnamon Syrup (*)
1 Egg White

Shake egg white with lime juice. Add cinnamon syrup and ice, and shake again. Strain into a Collins glass with 3-4 oz cola. Add more cola to shaker tin, lightly swirl to rinse ice cubes, and strain again; repeat until glass is full. Garnish with a lime wheel studded with 5 cloves, and add a straw.
(*) Vanilla syrup, nonalcoholic falernum, or other spiced syrup would work well here too.

Earlier in the week, I tinkered with a mocktail version of my Kingston Fizz. Since I find cola to be too sweet for my palate, I took the route of the classic Cuba Libre and added lime juice to the mix. Besides the Kingston Fizz's spice elements, the egg white aspect that I repeated here aided to smooth over the drink and helped cut back on the sensation of sweetness as well. I originally did this on a smaller lime and cinnamon syrup amount and later upped it to the above recipe to make for a more flavorful and balanced libation.
The cinnamon syrup and lime donated greatly to the drink's aroma. A creamy lime and caramel sip gave way to lime and cola spice on the swallow with a cinnamon finish. Indeed, the extra lime juice here helps to cut back on the soda's sugar attack and made the drink seem less like cola itself. Besides the one that I made for myself and photographed above, I made one for Cristin, one of the servers; she commented that the flavor profile reminded her a lot of Key Lime Pie.

raspberry ginger fix

1 oz Raspberry Syrup
1 oz Ginger Syrup
1 1/2 oz Lime Juice
1 1/2 oz Orange Juice

Build in a Double Old Fashioned glass, stir to mix, and fill with crushed ice. Garnish elaborately with fruits and berries in season, and add a straw.

 Cristin, one of the servers, yesterday was asking for a mocktail since she had been envious of the tales she had been hearing. I had been wanting to do something with raspberry syrup and thought about the variation we do on our Always Sunny (rum, raspberry syrup, lime juice, orange bitters, ginger beer). Our mocktail version of that is raspberry syrup and lime juice, crushed ice, and housemade ginger beer. But what if I were to tinker with that in a classic 19th style Fix? Instead of ginger beer, I could use the 2x strength ginger syrup that we dilute to make the soda. And to lengthen the drink as well as smooth it out, I opted for orange juice.
Fixes are very similar to Daisies, but Fixes are rather ornately decorated as was described by Harry Johnson when I wrote about his Brandy Fix. Here, I opted for a triple of the Luxardo cherry, orange peel, and lime peel "grass" that I have garnished Tiki drinks with in solo (along with a sprig of mint or other). Moreover, this garnish reiterates the lime, orange, and fruit notes in the drink. Overall, the Fix was tart, tangy, and spicy, and this flavor complexity made it more of a sipper (than a crushable gone-to-quick glass of juice). Cristin commented that it was "like Sour Patch Kids -- rather tart but sweet" as she gave praise to this Fix.