What’s in a name?

Ernest Raymond Gantt. Sound familiar? No? How about Donn Beach? Yep,that’s him. Donn changed his name when he started his Beachcomber chain of restaurants. Now I make mention of this because ol’ Donn wasn’t the only “Beachcomber” out there. Turns out there were a few scoundrels who tried to straight up rip him off by opening their own places called ‘Beachcomber’ and even ripped off the name of his classic Zombie drink. I learned all about this recently while reading Kevin Quigley’s excellent book,New England Tiki. I highly recommend reading it as it gives the full story along with a lot of other fascinating Tiki stuff.

Now bringing this back to mixing,ol’ Donn had a drink called Montego Bay. Thing is,if you search for this online,many of the results you’ll find will be for drinks that have the same name,but are totally different(and not as good). Many use spiced rum(with one using light rum),different juices,and it may even contain ginger ale or creme de banana. But don’t worry,Uncle Giltron won’t let you waste your rum,I’ve got the proper Donn Beach recipe,as sussed out by our friend Beachbum Berry. And as with most of his drinks,the Donn knew what he was doing. Enjoy!

Mix #210 Montego Bay

1.5oz dark Jamaican rum
1/2oz lime juice
1/2oz grapefruit juice
1/2oz honey syrup
1/4tsp allspice dram*
1 dash Angostura bitters
6 drops absinthe
3oz crushed ice

Blend everything for 5 seconds and pour into sour glass.

*About 1ml or 20-25 drops.

A classic Donn drink with lots of flavor. It starts with honey in the front,then a touch of spice,with some absinthe to finish. Complex and flavorful,use good rum because you’ll taste it. Very nice.

And wouldn’t you know,but ol’ Trader Vic(AKA,Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr),also had a drink of the same name:

Mix #211 Montego Bay Cocktail

1oz Rhum Negrita rum*
juice of ½ a lime**
1 dash triple sec***
1 dash rock candy syrup***
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake with ice and strain into chilled stemmed cocktail glass.

*I used Coruba.
**I used 1/2oz.
***I used 5ml = dash.

From the 1972 edition of Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide,this is a very different drink from Donn’s. It’s very tart and close to a daiquiri or traditional sailor grog. Now the measurement ‘dash’ has changed a bit over the years,so I decided to go with five milliliters as it seemed about right for this. Rock candy syrup is double-sweet so I actually used ten milliliters of regular simple. The original recipe called for Rhum Negrita,which is very dark and considered a ‘cooking’ rum,so I subbed in Coruba which is a nice very dark rum I’ve enjoyed in the past. I’d also like to note that for some reason Difford’s Guide chose to use Rhum Clement Blanc,which is a white agricole,and very different(and no idea why they would do this). So if you want to try a different daiquiri,just pick a fav rum and give this a try. You can also do like Difford’s and play with upping the other ingredients to your personal tastes.

Well,that’s all for this week folks. Keep checking in for more mixings. Aloha!