For my Savannah friends, I’ll admit the word “daiquiri” evokes a vision of River Street’s Wet Willies and their dozens of whirling slushie machines. Little did I know that in reality, a true daiquiri is a classic and balanced cocktail driven by a traditional Caribbean rhyme – “One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak.” The Aku Aku is a classic tropical play on the daiquiri, created by Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron as a direct, riff-style adaptation of Don the Beachcomber’s famous 1930s cocktail, the Missionary’s Downfall itself a daiquiri variant. Trader Vic officially first published the recipe in his 1972 Bartender’s Guide, swapping out honey and lemon for demerara and Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice,
Oh, this brings me back to my college days in metro Boston. The Top-Notch Volcano is a single-serving version of the (in)famous Scorpion Bowl. There’s nary a drink less suited for quarantine than a bowl of hooch, so proceed with caution! I had more than a few of these at the tongue-in-cheek Peking Tom’s near Prudential Tower, as well as the Hong Kong Restaurant in Harvard Square. My version uses Demerara pineapple syrup.
Another drink from the Boston area, this came out of the mind of Josh Childs at the bar Silverstone around 2005, when he was playing around with the newly-released St. Germain elderflower liqueur (aka bartneder’s ketchup). The end result famously tastes of graprefruit juice, despite including none. The early version of this used gin, but was later updated by Childs to swap in malty genever (gin’s precursor) at Trina’s Starlight Lounge in 2009 where it continues to be served today.
