ZOMBIE'S AND MAI TAI'S, OH MY!

If you're looking for something in the way of the exotic for your New Year's libations, consider going retro with some wild tiki cocktails.

Donn Beach is credited with combining the fruit flavors of the Hawaiian Islands and other tropical Pacific locales along with (mostly) rum, to make delicious cocktails which he served beginning in the 1930s at his Don's Beachcomber bar in Hollywood, then later at his string of Don the Beachcomber restaurants.

How could you not, I ask?

It was a drink called the Zombie that Beach created in 1934 that ignited the torch of the tiki bar craze. A concoction of three different kinds of rum, lime juice, falernum (a mixture, usually of the flavors of almond, ginger and lime}, Angostura bitters, Pernod, grenadine, and "Don's Mix", a combination of cinnamon syrup and grapefruit juice, it packed such a punch that customers were only allowed two per visit. Legend has it that Donn made up the drink for a hungover businessman who needed to make it through a meeting that day. The customer came back, saying that it had turned him into a zombie.

Other exotic cocktails to consider for your New Year's Monster Bash are the Mai Tai, The Hurricane, The Rum Runner, The Painkiller and The Scorpion. Check out Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's excellent book on tiki drinks, "Beachbum Berry Remixed" (or any of his others, too).

Mahalo!

The Zombie and The Witch Doctor that caused many a' mondo hangover.

A page from a Don The Beachcomber cocktail menu. Check out the "Limit Two"
notices for the Zombie and the Test Pilot -- and the prices!

A menu from Don The Beachcomber, Huntington Beach, CA before it closed.