The legend of the Zombie

Aloha!!!

I have shared on the Three of Strong Youtube Channel a chapter of the Oriol Elias’ Tiki Training Camp .

In this chapter, we will learn about the legend of one of Don the Beachcomber’s most famous cocktails, which is also one of the most iconic tiki cocktails: the Zombie.

In this video we will learn how to make the 1934 Zombie Punch and a more modern version created by me called Caribbean Zombie.

This video is the English dubbed version, if you want to see the original video in Spanish you can find it here.

I hope you enjoy it!!!

Lady of Bangalore

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of my newest cocktails, a short drink called Lady of Bangalore. This cocktail is a combination of exotic flavors created with the mission of transport you to a paradisiac place as soon as the first sip of the cocktail touches your palate. Do you dare to try it?

Lady of Bangalore

Author: Oriol Elias, 2020

Ingredients:

  • 2oz Tiki Lovers White Rum
  • 0.5oz Lime Juice
  • 1oz Pineapple Juice
  • 0.75oz Guava Reàl
  • 0.5oz Falernum
  • 1 dash Elemakule Tiki Bitters

Method: Shaker / Serve Strained

Ice: 3 ice cubes

Glass: Coupette (chilled)

Garnish: Edible flower

Black Friday in the Tiki Training Camp

During this next week, to celebrate Black Friday, I’m going to offer a serie of daily discounts on the different subscription levels of my Tiki Training Camp on Patreon.

From Monday 23 to Friday 27, every day discounts will appear in a special tier, you only have to select that tier that will be accompanied by the words “Black Friday” (for example: “Shrunken Head of the Camp (Black Friday)”) and you can enjoy that subscription price forever.

The offers will be launched every day at midnight in Central European Time (UTC + 1) time slot and will be limited, because only a certain number of promotional prices will come out, and the first to subscribe can benefit from these promotions.

The levels promoted each day will be:

Monday 11/23: BEACHCOMBER OF THE CAMP

  • This level gives access to video tutorials and PDF recipe books.
  • Access to community chat.

Tuesday 11/24: SHRUNKEN HEAD OF THE CAMP

  • This level gives access to video tutorials and PDF recipe books.
  • Includes personalized review of 2 recipes per month by email and 15 minutes per month to comment these recipes via Zoom.
  • Access to live sessions and community chat.

Wednesday 11/25: CANNIBAL OF THE CAMP

  • This level gives access to video tutorials and PDF recipe books.
  • Includes 1 hour of personalized consultancy/training via Zoom per month.
  • Access to live sessions and community chats.

Thursday 11/26: ZOMBIE OF THE CAMP

  • This level gives access to video tutorials and PDF recipe books.
  • Includes 2 hours of personalized consultancy/training via Zoom per month.
  • Access to live sessions and community chats.

Friday 11/27: BIG KAHUNA OF THE CAMP

  • This level gives access to video tutorials and PDF recipe books.
  • Includes 4 hours of personalized consultancy/training via Zoom per month.
  • Access to live sessions, private chat with me and community chats.

To enjoy these offers you just have to enter my Tiki Training Camp in Patreon on the indicated day.

Okole Maluna !!!

Let me introduce you my Tiki Training Camp

The time has come to present you the new project that I have been preparing in the last weeks: the Oriol Elias’ Tiki Training Camp.

This Training Camp is an online space for continuous training on tiki cocktails, that is, a space where I will add new content weekly, so there is a continuity in learning and a constant update in the content, not allowing this to become a masterclass that becomes obsolete by itself over the years.

I’m very excited to have created this project where I can grow as a professional, teaching what I like most to professional bartenders, home bartenders or fans of the tiki culture, offering continuous training on the  exciting world of exotic cocktails.

A space where I will present everything related to this style of cocktails: its history, its origins, the most influential characters, its best-kept secrets, its eras, its classic and modern cocktails, the world of rum, the evolution of the flavor palettes, ingredients,… in short, what I have been learning over the years, my point of view of this style of cocktail and my tricks for creating cocktails.

What can I offer at the Tiki Training Camp?

  • Knowledge about tiki culture and its history.
  • Assimilation of the structure of tiki cocktails.
  • Learning the classics.
  • Understand the world of rum.
  • Production of homemade ingredients.
  • Use of appropriate cocktail tools and techniques.
  • Techniques for garnish cocktails.
  • Tricks to create signature tiki cocktails.
  • Tricks to optimize cocktail service and cost analysis.
  • All content in Spanish and English (the video tutorials dubbed into English).

What are you going to find?

  • Video tutorials: Through various videos throughout the month, we will get to know the history of tiki cocktails and learn this style of cocktails. We will learn every detail of these cocktails, from the tools and their execution to the ingredients in depth.
  • PDF guides and recipe books:
  • Publication of recipe books and visual guides of certain techniques explained in the classes.
  • Online Sessions:
  • Specific training and Q&A sessions to answer your questions live.
  • Consultancy and online training: And if despite all this you still need more… this is what you were waiting for! I offer online classes where we can focus on the topics that interest you the most or help you developing a specific project. You can choose between 1 or 2 hours of personalized class per month.

All this through a monthly subscription training that adapts to all kinds of budgets, where you can decide what interests you and just pay for that level. You are the ones who decide if you want to invite me to an overproof shot or if you want to become a Menehune, a Beachcomber, a Shrunken Head, a Cannibal … or even one of the Zombies that are walking around my Tiki Training Camp.

Also in two of these levels there is an “Early Bird” discount for the first 15 to sign up!

You can join my Tiki Training Camp here.

Do you dare to be part of my Tiki Training Camp?

Basic Homemade Ingredients for Tiki Drinks

During the 6 years of life that this blog has, I have been publishing various recipes, including those that I consider to be the basic ingredients for making tiki drinks. I’m talking about homemade ingredients such as Orgeat, Cinnamon Syrup, Pimento Dram, Falernum or Vanilla Syrup. In this post, I have decided to group these recipes through links to the articles in order to facilitate the location of these.

You only have to press the name of the ingredient to access the recipe:

Volcán Tahitiano

On the menu that I made when I was working at Tahiti cocktail bar in Barcelona, we had a version of the Volcano Bowl that worked very well and had a quite particular ingredient for 2014, Pumpkin Real, a pumpkin purée infused syrup spiced with ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.

The truth is that, currently, I don’t have many options to be able to make cocktails to share in my actions, and this one in particular I have only done it a few times in some masterclasses. One day, I decided to make a version of that cocktail, adapting it to an individual service, making it less complex in the selection of rums, but making it more complex on the spices, there the Volcán Tahitiano was born.

Volcán Tahitiano

Author: Oriol Elias, 2018

Ingredients:

  • 3oz Don Q Añejo
  • 2oz Grapefruit Juice
  • 1oz Lime Juice
  • 0.75oz Pumpkin Real
  • 0.25oz Pimento Dram
  • 1 dash Angostura Bitters

Technique: Shaker/ Serve unstrained

Ice: Crushed Ice

Glass: Double Old Fashioned

Garnish: Mint Sprig, Fresh Grated Nutmeg, Maraschino Cherry

Bastard’s Life

Reading Minimalist Tiki, the book of my friend Matt Pietrek, I found a recipe from Daniel “Doc” Parks that caught my eye, the cocktail was called Banana Life. As I continued to immerse myself in my reading, I realized that there were some twists of the same cocktail in the book, such as The Banana Life Redux by Matt Pietrek or Commando Life by Jason Alexander. Honestly, I thought it was an interesting cocktail and a fun idea, so I decided to make my own twist on it, that’s how Bastard’s Life was born.

Bastard’s Life

Author: Oriol Elias, 2020

Ingredients:

  • 2oz Tiki Lovers Pineapple Rum 
  • 0,75oz Grapefruit Juice 
  • 0,75oz Lime Juice 
  • 0.75oz Pineapple Juice
  • 0,75oz Banana Liqueur
  • 0.5oz Passion Fruit Real
  • 1 dash Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Own Decanter Bitters 

Technique: Blender/Serve unstrained

Ice: Crushed Ice

Glass: Snifter

Garnish: Mint Sprig, Fresh Grated Nutmeg

Homemade Pimento Dram

Another particular ingredient used in tiki cocktails is a spicy liqueur called Pimento Dram, which is also known as Pimento Liqueur or Allspice Dram. It is a Jamaican pepper liqueur with a rum base.

Pimento Dram

Ingredients (aprox 1,2l):

  • 70g Allspice
  • 500ml Unaged White Jamaican Overproof Rum
  • 600gr Cane Sugar
  • 600ml Water

Instructions:

  • Add the ground allspice with the rum in a jar and leave to infuse for 10 days.
  • Strain pressing the solids well.
  • Make syrup 1: 1 with water and sugar.
  • Add it to the filtered infusion, bottle and leave to settle for 30 days.

Homemade Orgeat

Orgeat is an almond syrup of French origin widely used in cocktails by Trader Vic. The truth is that I have been working this ingredient on my cocktails for years, even before commercial versions were found in the Spanish market and, at the end, I always end up using two recipes, one faster or another more elaborate.

The first one that we should know is the most elaborate, consists on generating an almond milk first and then we can make our orgeat.

ORGEAT

Ingredients:

  • 500gr of raw almonds without skin
  • 800ml of water
  • 700 gr of sugar
  • 100ml of vodka (or unaged rum)
  • 1ml of almond extract
  • 2ml orange blossom water (or rose water)

Instructions:

  • Put the almonds in a bowl, cover with cold water and let soak for half an hour. Drain and crush the almonds.
  • In a bowl, mix the almonds with the 800 ml of water. Let stand for two hours.
  • In another bowl, strain the almonds through a superbag (or similar) pressing the solids well to expel the maximum liquid. Put the pulp again in the almond water that we have obtained. Let stand another hour and repeat the casting process. Optionally, the process could be repeated a third time.
  • Put the obtained almond milk (without the solid pulp) in a saucepan. Add the sugar and heat until it dissolves (without allowing it to boil), stirring constantly. Let cool about 20 minutes and add the extracts and the vodka (or unaged rum).
  • Let cool for about two hours and then bottle and store in the fridge. It lasts about a month.

The second and fastest way would be not to make the almond milk and start from an almond cream base.

ORGEAT (fast version)

Ingredients (aprox 500ml):

  • 3 tablespoons Almond Cream
  • 250 ml water
  • 250gr sugar
  • 2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/2 tablespoon orange blossom or rose water
  • 100ml vodka (or unaged rum)

Instructions:

  • Dissolve almond cream in hot water.
  • Add sugar and heat, stirring until dissolved.
  • Add vodka (or unaged rum) and extracts.
  • Let cool and bottle.
  • Store in a fridge. Lasts about a month.

The truth is that both options are interesting, one because you have the orgeat done in about 20 minutes and the other because you can control the entire process from the almond milk. This would allow us to play and experiment with other types of nuts instead of almonds, such as: chestnuts, pistachios, cashews, peanuts, …

Squash Banana Swizzle

This is one of my favorite new cocktails, I created the Squash Banana Swizzle at the end of 2018 and I used it in almost all my guest bartendings during 2019. I prepared a special video to share together with this recipe to make this amazing cocktail easy and available to all of you!

SQUASH BANANA SWIZZLE

Author: Oriol Elias, 2018

Ingredients:

  • 2oz Aged Martinique Rhum
  • 0.75oz Lime Juice
  • 0.75oz Banana Real
  • 1 barspoon Cinnamon Syrup
  • 2 dashes Bittermens Elemakule Tiki Bitters
  • 4 drops Coffee Tincture*

*Coffee Tincture: Infuse 22.5 gr fresh grounded Coffee in 3oz White Agricole Rhum 50% during 48h. Strain and Bottle.

Technique: Swizzle

Ice: Crushed Ice

Glass: Highball

Garnish: Banana Chip, Mint Sprig, Maraschino Cherry, Grated Nutmeg