My love affair with rum is nowhere near close to ending any time soon - it's just beginning. But, I was in the mood for a change this week. When I happened upon the Halekulani Cocktail - which uses bourbon rather than rum as its spirit - in Martin Cate's Smuggler's Cove book, I thought I would give it a try.
Cate credits the cocktail to Waikiki's House Without a Key lounge at the Halekulani Hotel, and dates it back to the 1930s. Looks like the House Without a Key has been absorbed by what is today the 5-star Halekulani Hotel. (It's also the title of a Charlie Chan mystery.)
Cate's recipe is sourced from good old Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's Sippin' Safari, which I don't yet have. It is as follows:
0.50 oz fresh lemon juice
0.50 oz. fresh orange juice
0.50 oz pineapple juice
0.25 oz. demerarra syrup*
0.50 teaspoon grenadine
1.50 oz. bourbon (I used Bulleit)
1 dash Angustura bitters
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, and double-strain** into a cocktail coupe and garnish with an edible orchid (I had neither a cocktail coupe [it's on the list] nor an edible orchid so I chose to use a vintage rocks glass and garnished with a pineapple slice and a cherry). Also, Cate seems to serve this up, but I went ahead and added two large ice cubes after the fact.
What a great departure from rum-based cocktails this was. Really well-balanced, the demerarra syrup adds a nice note that syncs well with the bourbon. The grenadine is on the verge of being a little too powerful so watch your measurements with it (Cate uses house-made grenadine, so perhaps it is less so in his by the book version). The only other way I can describe it is that it tastes like a Hawaiian old fashioned, the old fashioned being one of my favorite cocktails. If you like bourbon, give this one a shot. Cheers!
* To make demerarra syrup, use demerarra syrup (sometimes called turbinado - see my friend the Meek Tiki's post on it here) and do the following:
Boil 1/2 cup water and add 1/4 cup demerarra sugar after it boils and whisk very fast until it dissolves (about a minute). Then add 3/8 cup granulated sugar and whisk again until it's dissolved - another minute. Turn off heat and let cool. This will yield about a cup. I toss in an ounce or two of vodka to increase shelf life.
** To double-strain, use your cocktail shaker's strainer and pour the cocktail through a wire mesh strainer placed over your cocktail glass. This will stop any pulp or ice shards from getting into your cocktail.
For your listening pleasure, and something that really has nothing much to do with tiki culture or the 1930s, I give you a collection of songs by Little Willie John, a fantastic 1950s/60s R&B singer:
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