How to Make Your Tiki Drinks Your Own

This Happy Hour, we’re exploring one of tiki culture’s most essential tricks of the trade: the house r(h)um blend. White, aged, and spiced spirits come together to characterize each watering hole’s signature drinks, and we think it’s time that home bar enthusiasts cultivate their own trademark flavors, too. Let’s start with some inspiration from the spirits in Beard Award winner Martin Cate’s three dots and a dash.

Cate starts by mixing up a homemade honey syrup for depth and sweetness, then pours in orange and lime juice for acidity. But in true tiki fashion, this drink is all about supremely aromatic spirits. He blends two different aged r(h)ums for complexity, then adds modest doses of velvet falernum liqueur, allspice dram, and Angostura bitters. Shaken, poured over ice, and garnished with the three cherries and pineapple frond that give the drink its name, this cocktail will take your home bar to new heights of tiki flair. Get the recipe, scour the liquor store shelves for those funky bottles, and make it this weekend.

Hungry for more? View our entire recipe collection.

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Frank Guerriero is the media assistant at the Beard Foundation. Find him on Instagram.