#297 Cocktail: Zombie

     You wanna get drunk fast? There are 2 drinks that can fulfill that wish, Long Island Ice-Tea and this one.....Zombie.
      It first appeared in late 1934, invented by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant. It was popularized on the East coast soon afterwards at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
       Legend has it that Donn 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. Its smooth, fruity taste works to conceal its extremely high alcoholic content. Don the Beachcomber restaurants limit their customers to two Zombies apiece because of their potency, which Beach said could make one "like the walking dead."

2 ounces Anejo rum

1 ounce light rum

1 ounce dark rum

1/2 fresh lime juice

3/4 ounce pineapple juice

1/4 ounce apricot brandy

1/4 ounce 151-proof rum

Angostura bitters to taste

#293 Cocktail: Tropical

    This is a recipe by David Embury from 1950's, bu reformulated by Gaz Regan, due to the fact that the original one asked for muddled pineapple with sugar and it didn't include the bitters.
     A tasty cocktail that, depending on the type of bitters you use, the taste can change tremendously.

2 ounces dark rum

1/2 ounce pineapple juice

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

grenadine to taste

Angostura bitters to taste

#236 Cocktail: Planter's

  This one has a very simple history. It was created by Gaz Regan in the late 1990s for an advertorial for Captain's Morgan private Stock Rum.
   Very simple and tasty cocktail. But do not be fooled by it's sweetness because this one is a little strong

2 ounces Captain's Morgan Private Stock Rum

1/2 once Godiva chocolate liqueur

#229 Cocktail: Planter's Punch

      Planter's Punch is an IBA Official Cocktail made of dark rum, several juices, grenadine syrup, sugar syrup, and Angostura bitters.
     The cocktail has been said to have originated at the Planters Hotel in Charleston, SC. The September 1878 issue of the London magazine Fun listed the recipe as follows:

A wine-glass with lemon juice fill,

Of sugar the same glass fill twice

Then rub them together until

The mixture looks smooth, soft, and nice.

Of rum then three wine glasses add,

And four of cold water please take. A

Drink then you'll have that's not bad—

At least, so they say in Jamaica.

    The recipe in Gaz Regan book is slightly changed. He relies heavily on the grapefruit juice both Angostura and Peychaud's bitters

2 ounces dark rum

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

1 ounce fresh orange juice

2 ounces fresh grapefruit juice

Angostura bitters to taste

Peychauds bitters to taste

#226 Cocktail: Piña Colada

   The name piña colada literally means "strained pineapple", a reference to the freshly pressed and strained pineapple juice used in the drink's preparation
   The earliest known story states that in the 19th century, Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí, to boost his crew's morale, gave them a beverage or cocktail that contained coconut, pineapple and white rum. This was what would be later known as the famous piña colada. With his death in 1825, the recipe for the piña colada was lost.
    Ramón "Monchito" Marrero claims to have created the Piña Colada in 1954, when a bartender at the Caribe Hilton. After three months of experimentation, Mr. Marrero finally settled upon the recipe for the Piña Colada, which he felt captured the true nature and essence of Puerto Rico. He continued to serve the drink at the Caribe Hilton for 35 years after its creation and was finally rewarded for his efforts in 1978 when Puerto Rico officially proclaimed the cocktail its national drink.
    Caribe Hilton possesses two proclamations that state the hotel is the "Birthplace of the Piña Colada". One proclamation was given by Puerto Rico Governor Sila M. Calderón in 2000, and the other was given in 2014 by Governor Alejandro García Padilla as part of the Piña Colada 60th Anniversary celebrations.
    The remodeled Caribe Hilton Bar, Caribar Rums & Light Bites, provides a new menu reflecting the Evolution of the Piña Colada, including a contemporary version: the Clear Colada.
    Barrachina, a restaurant in Puerto Rico, also claims to be the birthplace of the piña colada

2 ounces dark rum

2 ounces coconut cream

1 1/2 ounce pineapple juice

#204 Cocktail: Missing Link

    The history for this cocktail is simple. It was created by Gaz Regan, after he realized that, until that point, no one thought of making a New Orleans Sour cocktail that had a rum base. The cocktail name it's self-explanatory.

1 1/2 ounce dark rum

1 ounce triple sec

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

#196 Cocktail: Modernista

     The cocktail is adapted from a recipe by Ted Haigh (Dr. Cocktail), who in turn adapted it from the formula for the Modern Cocktail in Craddock's "Savoy Cocktail Book" .
      In it's recipe, Ted Haigh uses a teaspoon  of absinth, but Gaz Regan prefers only two drops. Is better to experiment with the quantity of absinth, because it can overpower the taste of the cocktail. But if you are an absinth fan, then a teaspoon might be on your taste.
      Just as a note, it is not one of my favorite cocktails. I find the combination of scotch, rum and lemon juice not that pleasant. But it's just my taste.

2 ounces scotch

1/2 ounce Jamaican  rum

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

orange bitters to taste

absinth to taste

#194 Cocktail: Muddy Waters

   A really tasty and simple to make summer cocktail.
   Created by Jimmy Daukas of Maryland, this drink was introduced to Gaz Regan by his friend, Doug Land. The name comes from the use of the dark rum in a, clear and shinny drink. It's imperative to use Myers's rum to get the exact flavor that Daukas intended for this Highball.

3 to 4 lime wedges

2 ounces Myers's dark rum

3 ounce fresh grapefruit juice

#190 Cocktail: Mai Tai

        Victor J. Bergeron claimed to have invented the Mai Tai in 1944 at his restaurant, Trader Vic's, in California. Trader Vic's rival, Don the Beachcomber, claimed to have created it in 1933 at his then-new bar named for himself (later a famous restaurant) in Hollywood. Don the Beachcomber's recipe is more complex than that of Vic's and tastes quite different.
       The Trader Vic's story of its invention is that the Trader (Victor J. Bergeron) created it one afternoon for some friends who were visiting from Tahiti. One of those friends, Carrie Guild, tasted it and cried out: "Maita'i roa ae!" (literally "very good!", figuratively "Out of this world! The best!")—hence the name.[5]
       In 1953 the Matson Navigation Company (now Matson, Inc.) commissioned Victor Bergeron to create a drink for their new Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Victor then made a variation on the Mai Tai recipe adding pineapple juice; this variant is still served today at the hotel
      The Mai Tai became such a popular cocktail in the 1950s–60s that many restaurants, particularly tiki-themed restaurants or bars, served them. The Mai Tai was also prominently featured in the Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii.
     Today, the Mai Tai is synonymous with Tiki culture both past and present.

1 ounce dark rum

1 ounce light rum

1/2 ounce triple sec

3/4 ounce orgeat syrup

1 ounce fresh lime juice

#167 Cocktail: Jamaican Cobbler

   No history for this delicious drink, or I do not know it and couldn't find it anywhere. The name comes from the use of Tia Maria liqueur which made in Jamaica using Jamaican coffee beans.
  An easy to make and really tasty cocktail.

   

3 ounces dark rum

1 ounce Tia Maria

#156 Cocktail: Hurricane

      Even if the summer is gone, that doesn't mean that we should stick to the hot tea or toddies. The Hurricane, as you may see, is a tropical, summer cocktail, a mix of several juices and rum, which makes it extremely delicious.
       The creation of this passion fruit–colored relative of a daiquiri is credited to New Orleans tavern owner Pat O'Brien. The bar allegedly started as a speakeasy called Mr. O'Brien's Club Tipperary and the password was "storm's brewin'."
      In the 1940s, he needed to create a new drink to help him get rid of all of the less-popular rum that local distributors forced him to buy before he could get a few cases of more popular liquors such as scotch and other whiskeys. He poured the concoction into hurricane lamp–shaped glasses and gave it away to sailors.
      The drink caught on, and it has been a mainstay in the French Quarter ever since. It is more commonly served in a disposable plastic cup, as New Orleans laws permit
drinking in public and leaving a bar with a drink, but they prohibit public drinking from glass containers.

Wikipedia

1 1/2 ounce light rum

1 1/2 ounce dark rum

1 ounce fresh orange juice

1 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup

2 ounce passion fruit

grenadine to taste

       

#155 Cocktail: Hot Buttered Rum

   After molasses began being imported to Colonial America from Jamaica, and distilleries opened in New England in the 1650s, colonists began adding distilled rum to hot beverages such as toddies and nogs, creating beverages such as hot buttered rum and eggnog, among others.
   Spiced rum drinks are especially popular during the winter months. Charles Coulombe, author of Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink that Conquered the World, writes that rum has always been an "important component of American holiday celebrations", and given the Puritanical ban on outright celebration of religious holidays, hot toddies and spiced rum drinks share an association with American civic holidays, such with New Years and Thanksgiving.
    I know that is more a winter-ish drink, but because I feel like I will catch a cold and I am at letter H in this book, then, Voilà !!

4 ounces warm water or apple cider

1 tsp honey

1 whole clove

2 ounces dark rum or spiced rum

1/2 tsp unsalted butter

ground cinnamon to taste

1 cinnamon stick

#153 Cocktail: Hop Toad

    The drink here is adapted from a recipe in Crockett's "The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book", but the ratios are not the same as the original ones.
     David Wondrich gives a nice description or tale in the Esquire Magazine regarding this cocktail:

      "A slippery one, this, but worth catching if the effort required isn't too great. Here's the thing of it: It's as easy to mix as an Alka-Seltzer and twice as restorative -- provided you can get the main ingredient. It calls, you see, for apricot brandy. But not just any apricot brandy. It calls for Hungarian apricot brandy, and nothing else will do. In Hungary, they make the stuff by mashing up a mess of apricots, fermenting it, and running it through the still a couple times -- yielding what the French would call an eau de vie.Delicately perfumed, smooth, and yet still a little bit fiery. Here, we make apricot brandy by flavoring grape brandy with apricots, perhaps even artificial ones, and then sweetening the shit out of it. It has an unfortunate tendency to taste like cough syrup, and that not of the highest grade. It's not recommended for anyone over legal drinking age. Or under it. (Our lawyers made us add that. Thanks, guys.) If you do get your hands on some of the stuff -- "barack palinka," they call it, and it is in fact imported here* -- you might as well try the venerable Hop Toad"

1 1/2 ounce dark rum

1 ounce apricot liqueur 

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

Angostura to taste

#138 Cocktail: Frozen Pina Colada

    The name piña colada literally means "strained pineapple", a reference to the freshly pressed and strained pineapple juice used in the drink's preparation.
     Two Puerto Rican bartenders contest the ownership of their national drink. Ramón 'Monchito' Marrero Pérez claims to have first made it at the Caribe Hilton Hotel's Beachcomber Bar in San Juan in 1954, using the then newly-available coco lópez cream of coconut. Coco lópez was developed in Puerto Rico in 1948 by Don Ramón López-Irizarry, hence the Puerto Rican connection and the 1952 account of the drink's creation. Some say the drink did not acquire its name until the 1960s.
      The Caribe Hilton Hotel sits on a 17-acre peninsula outside San Juan and was the first luxury hotel to open in the region, becoming a popular destination for the rich and famous who helped spread word of the drink.
      Ramón Portas Mingot also says he created it in 1963 at the Barrachina Restaurant, 104 Fortaleza Street, Old San Juan. The restaurant stands by his claim to this day

National Piña Colada Day is celebrated on the islands on 10 July......Damn, I was so close!!!

2 ounces Dark Rum

1/2 cup pineapple cubes

1 1/2 ounce coconut cream

#135 Cocktail: Frozen Banana Colada

   And with this cocktail, I will start a series of a few frozen cocktails, really good for these hot summer days.
   The Banana Colada is a beautiful and tasty rum-based tropical cocktail. There is no history to this one, but as you might figure is just a deviation or a twist on the classic Pina Colada.
    Still, the add of the banana doesn't make the cocktail less attractive. Cheers

2 ounces dark rum

1 ounce coconut cream

2 ounces pineapple juice

1 ripped banana

#123 Cocktail: Fish House Punch

   This most venerable of American flowing bowls is held to have been first concocted in 1732 at Philadelphia’s fishing club, the State in Schuylkill, also known as the "Fish House".
   A 1744 note by the secretary of an embassy of Virginia Commissioners contains what may be the earliest record of the Punch. Meeting local notables at the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, he described being served "a Bowl of fine Lemon Punch big enough to have Swimmed half a dozen of young Geese."
   America's first President, George Washington, was known to be fond of a drink or two, and sometimes more. He indulged in thirteen toasts — one for each state — during a victory celebration at New York’s Fraunces Tavern, and it’s said that after he partook of Fish House punch at Philadelphia’s State in Schuylkill, he couldn’t bring himself to make an entry in his diary for the following three days.
   The State in Schuylkill Fish House Punch is traditionally made in a large bowl that did double duty as a baptismal font for the citizens' infant sons; “its an ample space . . . . . would indeed admit of total immersion”, as one citizen noted. I doubt that there was Punch in it at the time — it was far too precious for such usage, and far too potent.
   The Fish House was an august gentlemen's society devoted to escaping domestic tribulation, but also to cigars, whiskey, and the occasional fishing foray upon the Chesapeake or the Restigouche River in Nova Scotia. Another version states that it was created in 1848 by Shippen Willing of Philadelphia, to celebrate the momentous occasion of women being allowed into the premises of the "Fish House" for the first time in order to enliven the annual Christmas Party. It was supposed to be just "something to please the ladies' palate but get them livelier than is their usual wont".
    This punch, which contains rum, Cognac, and peach brandy, is potent, so it is normally diluted with cold black tea, a common mixer for this particular punch, or with seltzer water. Some punch bowls may not be large enough to accommodate the large ice block called for, and though the block is a classic part of this recipe, it can, of course, be simply served in a pitcher over ice cubes.
    The recipe will be for a Fish House Cocktail which in fact is the Fish House Punch but without making in gargantuan quantities.

1 1/2 ounce Dark Rum

1/2 ounce  Brandy

1/2 ounce Peach Brandy

1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/4 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 simple syrup

#99 Cocktail: Dark and Stormy

   It's the Bermuda national drink. And it's made exclusively with Gosling's Black rum.  In the US, the name "Dark 'N Stormy" and the corresponding recipe is a trademark of Gosling Brothers Ltd, the producer of Black Seal Rum and Stormy Ginger Beer in Bermuda.
      Sailors and rum go hand in hand. In the 1800s it was standard practice for the British Royal Navy to allocate rum rations to sailors, and the rum sourced from their various bases on Caribbean rum-producing islands such as Bermuda.
      In the later 1860s the Gosling Brothers rum distillery in Bermuda began marketing its “old rum” – a heavy blend of dark rums which eventually became the Gosling’s Black Seal marketed today.
      Originating in England, ginger beer was brought to the Caribbean via the English colonists. William John Barritt came to Bermuda from England and in 1874 opened a dry goods shop on the corner of Front & King Streets in Hamilton, with a small mineral water bottling machine in the back room. This is where the Bermuda’s now-famous Barritt’s Ginger Beer first started (and is still going, five generations later).
       It’s likely that the mix of rum & ginger beer was made with Gosling’s dark rum as it was the popular locally available rum. Goslings has since trademarked the name Dark ‘n’ Stormy to keep some degree of official ownership over the cocktail.
         As for the name itself, it is said to have originated when a sailor, holding up the dark-cloud-in-a-glass beverage, observed that the drink was the “colour of a cloud only a fool or a dead man would sail under”.

http://www.rumahoy.com/

3 ounces ginger beer

2 ounces Gosling's Black Rum

#37 Cocktail: Black-Eyed Susan

     The official cocktail of the Preakness, the black-eyed Susan, was introduced in 1973. Since then, the cocktail’s official recipe has changed, several times, and often depending on what liquor sponsors have been lined up for the annual race.
    That 1973 mix, we know, was a base of rum and vodka, splashed with orange and pineapple juices. But details about the origin of the cocktail can be confusing. Cocktail lore often is.
    One version of the black-eyed Susan history says that the drink was created by the Heublein Co., a Hartford, Conn.-based liquor distributor and specialist in “ready-made” cocktails for the home consumer, everything from martinis and Manhattans to Star Stream Tiki and the Brass Monkey.
    In the Heublein version, the company created the black-eyed Susan but refused to divulge its recipe to Preakness officials, who had to come up with their own recipe.
    But credit really goes to the Harry M. Stevens Co., the longtime caterers at Pimlico, who asked Heublein to help them create a ready-made mix that would help them serve hundreds, if not thousands, of the cocktails, quickly, at the 1973 Preakness.
     After that, the story gets hard to pin down. It’s possible Heublein kept the exact details of the black-eyed Susan recipe to itself. It’s not clear when Pimlico’s caterers were compelled to, or decided to, start making black-eyed Susans without the Heublein mix.
    Some cocktail historians believe that Heublein repackaged the black-eyed Susan as the Brass Monkey.
    Heublein did market the black-eyed Susan. The promotional ad, dated to 1975, is gaily illustrated by a Gilded Age gathering on the Pimlico infield in 1873.

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce rum

3/4 ounce triple sec

1 1/2 ounce fresh orange juice

1 1/2 ounce pineapple juice

#34 Cocktail: Bahama Mama

     The Bahama Mama is another of those enigmatic drinks with widely varying recipes, of which none seem to be "official" or "original". The common elements are rum, pineapple juice, and citrus. It says that this is a favorite drink in the Bahamas. From what I read, the Bahama Mama is also a woman from the Bahamas normally with a big "behind". So probably the name of the drink was inspired by this. Well, will never know

    Anyway, the Bahama Mama is a delicious drink in the true tiki style

1/4 ounce Kahlua

1/2 ounce dark rum

1/2 ounce coconut liqueur

1/2 ounce 151-proof rum

1 ounce fresh lemon juice

4 pineapple juice

#24 Cocktail: Bolero

 Couldn't find any history of the cocktail. I only know that is adapted after a recipe from 1950.
    It is a rum based drink with a little smokey flavor coming from the brandy. You can't really feel the taste of orange juice due to the high concentration of lime, so if you want a more balanced flavors, I think you can play a little with the amounts of the juices

1 ounce dark rum

1 ounce brandy

1/2 fresh orange juice

1 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup