This week I have used a traditional cocktail formula, not that different from most formulas I use, to make a tiki-style cocktail with the tiki ingredients I had at hand. My idea was, based on a traditional version of the Mai Tai, making a cocktail with the Falernum I have. Once again, I am using the ingredient that sometimes is hard to come by to create a cocktail to deepen my understanding of that ingredient. With its distinct flavour of Caribbean spices, it gives a tikiesque flavour which usually is very nice. For this cocktail, it was quite nice albeit a bit forgettable. There is a reason why many of the classics are classics and why what I come up with isn’t a classic.

Generally, the cocktail, forgettable while being good, is quite nicely balanced. The use of curacao makes it quite rich. It loses a bit of the sharpness that the daiquiri or similar cocktails have. Perhaps a better liqueur would be something like triple sec, like Cointreau. The spices give the cocktail a nice roundness which is nice but, having done more tiki cocktails, is nothing special. The feeling with this cocktail is that it sits in the middle of everything and there is nothing that makes it stand out. The daiquiri is crisper and more refreshing. The Mai Tai stands out much more and is the face of orgeat. The undead gentleman is rich and spicy. It is hard to say anything that this cocktail does better than any of those, yet it is still not bad at all.

My Recipe:

• 2 oz (6 cl) Aged rum
• 0.5 oz (1.5 cl) Curacao
• 0.5 oz (1.5 cl) Velvet Falernum
• 1 oz (3 cl) Lime Juice

Add the ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake to chill and dilute. Strain into a rocks glass with ice, garnish with a lime wheel.