ZOMBIE
Zombie: Donn Beach's 1934 Tiki Powerhouse Cocktail
The Zombie was invented in late 1934 by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant Wikipedia. Legend has it that Beach originally concocted the Zombie to help a hung-over customer get through a business meeting. The customer returned several days later to complain that he had been turned into a zombie for his entire trip Wikipedia.
According to the original recipe, the Zombie included three different kinds of rum, lime juice, falernum, Angostura bitters, Pernod, grenadine, and "Don's Mix," a combination of cinnamon syrup and grapefruit juice Wikipedia. Beach labeled unmarked bottles behind his bar numerically and wrote recipes in accordance with the numbers, encrypting them so not even staff knew what they were mixing Gastro Obscura.
Don the Beachcomber restaurants limited their customers to two Zombies apiece because of their potency, which Beach said could make one "like the walking dead" Wikipedia. The Zombie was popularized on the East Coast at the 1939 New York World's Fair Wikipedia.
The original recipe remained secret for decades until cocktail historian Jeff "Beachbum" Berry decoded it in 2007 through research including a recipe notebook kept by bartender Dick Santiago during his fifteen years at Don the Beachcomber's in the 1930s Beachbumberry. The Zombie launched the tiki cocktail movement and established Beach as the founding father of tiki culture.
RECIPE:
1½ oz gold Puerto Rican rum
1½ oz gold Jamaican rum
1 oz 151-proof Demerara rum
¾ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz Don's Mix (2 parts grapefruit juice, 1 part cinnamon syrup)
½ oz falernum
1 tsp grenadine
6 drops Pernod
Dash Angostura bitters
Method:
Add all ingredients to blender with ice
Blend for 5 seconds
Pour into tall glass or tiki mug
Garnish with fresh mint