Happy Throwback Thursday, readers!

In case it has not become clear to you yet, we here at The Woman At The Bar are huge tiki drink fans. But above all the tiki drinks, our favorite is the ominously named and ridiculously delicious Zombie.

And because we love you so much, we decided to stop holding out on you and just give you our recipe already!

You’re welcome.

The Zombie was originally created by Don The Beachcomber, one of the two tiki drink pioneers, in the 1930s. Don was notoriously secretive about his recipes, and would either not write them down at all, or write in a code that only he understood. Unfortunately, that means that bartenders today do not have his original recipe, but fortunately it means that we get to play and figure out our own!

As with all tiki drinks, The Zombie is a bit complicated to make, and requires a lot of ingredients–but we promise you, it is worth it. It should be noted however, that this drink is very, very aptly named, so don’t go downing 5 of these in an evening unless you want to end up like a character out of a horror movie.

Now, we’ve painstakingly beta tested this drink to whittle down our perfect recipe, and it is with great pride that we present it to you today.

For The Woman At The Bar Zombie, you will need:

• 1 1/2 oz traditional, barrel aged rum (Myers)
• 1 1/2 oz young, blended rum (Wray & Nephew)
• Approx. 1 oz 151 rum, for float
• 1/2 oz cinnamon & ginger infused simple syrup (recipe below)
• 1/2 oz amaretto liqueur
• 1 oz lime juice
• juice from 1 medium orange
• juice from 1/2 grapefruit
• pulp from 1 passion fruit
• 2 oz pineapple juice

Gather all of your ingredients plus your shaker glass, small citrus press, electric juicer, jiggers, and large serving glass.

First things first, we need to make our cinnamon ginger syrup.

To do this, peel and chop up about a 1/2 inch piece of ginger, and place it aside with 3-4 cinnamon sticks.

 

Then fill a small saucepan with equal parts sugar and water (we like to start with 1 cup of each), add in the ginger and cinnamon sticks, and simmer on low for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat, and allow it to cool completely before transferring it to an airtight container for storage. This can keep in your fridge for 2 weeks.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets get down to business!

First, squeeze 1 oz of lime juice (about 1 full lime) and pour it directly into your shaker glass.

Next, add in 1/2 oz of your cinnamon ginger syrup, and 1/2 oz of amaretto.

Now for the rum! Add in both the 1 1/2 oz of blended and 1 1/2 oz of traditional rums. As a reminder, we warned you up top that this drink has its name for a reason.

Fruit juice time!

You want to juice your orange, grapefruit, and passionfruit at the same time and into the same place. The amounts we gave you up top for these fruits will make more juice than you need for one cocktail, but there is no good way to get the proportions right if you cut it down more, so we guess you will just have to share the love with friends and family!

We highly recommend using an electric juicer for your orange/grapefruit/passionfruit concoction, especially because of the passion fruit. For those of you who have never seen one before, the inside of a passion fruit is a bit out of the ordinary.

Just cut it in half and use the electric juicer as usual. It is okay if some of the seeds make it into your final product.

Once your juice is combined, add 4 oz of the orange/grapefruit/passion fruit mixture into the glass.

Now add 2 oz of pineapple juice. Again, this is a-okay to buy canned, just do your best to get the not-from-concentrate version (Trade Joe’s sells a great one).

Now add ice directly into your shaker glass, and then pour the ingredients (ice included) into your serving glass (we crushed our ice, but that is optional). This drink should not be over-stirred or shaken, the ingredients will blend enough just through the pour.

 

 

Final step! Take one of your squeezed lime halves, flip it inside out, place it into the drink, and pour the 151 directly in there to make a lime boat! Live your dreams, guys.

 

And there you have it! Drop a straw in there, throw an umbrella on that baby, sit back, relax, and enjoy the summer!

 

And as always, but especially with The Zombie, drink responsibly.

 

Cheers!