Good Times, Great Oldies
Late summer is all about sweet nostalgia — that feeling of celebrating with something a little indulgent, a little over the top, and a lot of fun. If you want a treasure trove of recipes to get at this exact feeling, reaching back into the vintage cocktail catalog yields great results, whether you’re in vacation mode or simply celebrating Tuesday night at home. But where to start if you’ve exhausted all your usuals? Here are three favorites that lean a little tiki — fulfilling those full last-day-of-summer vibes — to get you started.
Painkiller
Serves 1
The Piña Colada may get all the glory, but the Painkiller, a close relative, is as good as an excuse as any to compare and contrast the differences—for scientific purposes, of course. The Painkiller is shaken and served over crushed ice instead of blended, and has a sweet hit of orange juice and nutmeg as an accent, all adding up to a mellow, vacation-in-a-glass sort of drink, no blender needed. A note about the rum: The recipe was created at a resort in the British Virgin Islands in 1970, but Pusser’s Rum trademarked the drink in the 1980s. That means that if it’s served at a restaurant, it should technically contain Pusser’s Rum, a dark Royal Navy Rum, but if you’re at home you can experiment with what you have on hand.
• 2 ounces Pusser’s rum
• 4 ounces pineapple juice
• 1 ounce fresh orange juice
• 1 ounce cream of coconut
• Garnish: pineapple wedge and a dash of nutmeg
• Glassware: Hurricane glass
Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until chilled, around 10-15 seconds, then strain into a hurricane glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a dash of nutmeg.
Mai Tai
Serves 1
If someone asks you to make a Mai Tai, it’s best to ask which one they’re thinking of. There’s the original Trader Vic’s Mai Tai, essentially a rum sour doctored up with curaçao and orgeat for tropical flare. Then there’s the Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai, a fun fruity concoction with pineapple and orange juice. And then there’s the premixed syrupy sweet Mai Tai era. There is, perhaps, a time and place for all of them, but if you have a choice, go for the classic, which couldn’t be easier to make. The O.G. Trader Vic’s Mai Tai used a 17-year old J. Wray and Nephew rum, which has long run out. To emulate that flavor, some bartenders blend a mix of different types —but you don’t have to go that extreme. This version uses just one, but splurge for the right one. Barrel aging makes all the difference.
• 2 ounces aged Jamaican rum
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• ½ ounce orange curaçao
• ¼ ounce orgeat
• Garnish: Lime wedge or wheel
• Glassware: Rocks glass
Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with crushed ice. Shake until chilled, then pour the ice and liquid into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lime wedge or wheel for an understated look, or go full tiki, with orchids, umbrellas—you name it.
El Diablo
Serves 1
Sure, you could make your regular margarita or Paloma. But if you want to mix it up from your usual tequila go-tos, it’s hard to go wrong with the crowd-pleasing El Diablo, a mix of tequila, crème de cassis and ginger beer. Early iterations of this classic call for ginger ale instead of ginger beer. You could use that in a pinch, of course, but you’d miss out on the extra spicy kick, the perfect foil to the rich late summer fruitiness of crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur.
• 1 ½ ounces tequila, blanco or reposado
• ½ ounce crème de cassis
• ½ ounce lime juice
• 3 ounces ginger beer
• Garnish: lime wedge or wheel
• Glassware: Rocks or Highball
Add tequila, crème de cassis and lime juice to a shaking tin with ice. Shake until chilled, around 10-15 seconds. Strain into an ice-filled rocks or highball glass. Garnish with a lime wedge or wheel.