Dark 'n' Stormy
60 ml Dark rum, 100 ml Ginger beer, 10 ml Lime juice, 1 Lime wedge
Zombie
Three rums, tropical fruit and a reputation much stronger than it tastes.
Tiki
Easy
7 min
Photo: Zombie Cocktail by Matthias Friedlein (www.augustine-bar.de) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · All credits
Ingredients
Measures below are multiplied for 12 drinks. Unmeasurable amounts such as “a splash” are left as written.
- 540 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 540 ml line. Dark rum - A Jamaican one, molasses-heavy and funky
- 540 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 540 ml line. White rum - Stands in for the gold rum of the original; a demerara rum is even better
- 240 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 240 ml line. Lime juice
- 120 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 120 ml line. Grapefruit juice - Half of Don's Mix - the other half is the cinnamon syrup below
- 60 ml Jigger One large side (50 ml) of a standard jigger, plus two teaspoons. Simple syrup
- 12 pinches Cinnamon - Stirred into the syrup to stand in for the cinnamon syrup of the original
- 180 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 180 ml line. Falernum - Almond, clove and lime - the tiki spice cupboard in a bottle
- 60 ml Jigger One large side (50 ml) of a standard jigger, plus two teaspoons. Grenadine
- 12 dashes Bottle Twelve quick shakes of the bottle - each a few drops, about a millilitre. Angostura bitters
- 36 drops Absinthe - The original uses Pernod - three drops is plenty
- 12 sprigs Mint sprig (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Shake the rums, juices, syrups and spice with crushed ice.
- Pour unstrained into a tall glass and top with mint.
Method
Batch (12 drinks)Batch (12 drinks) - about 1.74 l of measured ingredients, before ice and dilution.
Timings and per-glass steps below are written for one drink and are not scaled. A full jug takes longer to chill, so stir or shake until it is properly cold rather than by the clock, and pour over fresh ice one glass at a time.
- Stir the pinch of cinnamon into the simple syrup so it dissolves.
- Add the rums, lime juice, grapefruit juice, sweetened syrup, falernum, grenadine and bitters to a shaker.
- Fill the shaker with crushed ice and shake briefly - five or six seconds, no more.
- Pour the whole thing, unstrained, into a tall glass and add more crushed ice to fill.
- Float three drops of absinthe on top and finish with a sprig of mint.
Serve it
Volumes in this story are multiplied for the size above, along with the ingredients. Years, ratios and the capacities of glasses and jugs are left as written.
Zombie
Donn Beach made this in 1934 at his Hollywood bar, and it is said he limited customers to two apiece - a rule that says everything about the drink. The legend, cheerfully repeated ever since, is that a customer drank three and asked for a fourth, and was still walking in the morning "like a zombie". The original recipe was a secret he took to the grave; what is on this page is the widely agreed reconstruction of it.
Getting it right
Three rums, two juices, two syrups and a spice cupboard looks fussy, and it is worth every measure. The falernum and the grapefruit are what make it a tiki drink rather than a rum punch, and the absinthe is a seasoning rather than an ingredient - three drops, not a splash. Shake it briefly and pour it unstrained: the crushed ice is the body of the drink. And do take the original host's advice. Two is a lovely evening; three is tomorrow's problem.
Tasting notes
Fruit and spice up front, molasses and almond and clove underneath, and a long, warm, rum-heavy finish that arrives without warning. It is strong, it is complicated, and it is worth the seven minutes.
If you have a demerara rum in the cupboard, use it for the third pour - 360 ml in place of the white rum above - and you are closer to the original than most bars manage.
More Dark rum cocktails
Hurricane
60 ml Dark rum, 30 ml Passion fruit purée, 20 ml Lemon juice, 15 ml Grenadine, 10 ml Simple syrup, 1 Orange slice
Jungle Bird
45 ml Dark rum, 20 ml Campari, 45 ml Pineapple juice, 15 ml Lime juice, 15 ml Simple syrup, 1 wedge Pineapple