Historic Mariner Cocktail Recipe

Whether or not or not a sailor’s life is for you, this spiced Tiki drink and Navy Grog riff from Jeff “Beachbum” Berry is likely to be your new tropical favourite. It combines two sorts of rum with grapefruit and lime juices, easy syrup and allspice dram for a refreshing drink with nuanced flavors.

The Historical past of the Historic Mariner

Regardless of his nickname, Berry isn’t any bum: The proprietor of New Orleans restaurant Latitude 29 has been documenting Tiki tradition for greater than 30 years.

The story of Tiki begins a lot earlier: Ernest “Donn Seashore” Gantt opened his Hollywood bar Don the Beachcomber in 1934, impressed by his travels within the South Pacific. Victor “Dealer Vic” Bergeron adopted quickly after, imitating Seashore’s signature model at his eponymous bar and popularizing it much more with drinks such because the Mai Tai. From that point till the daybreak of the Disco period, Tiki tradition was alive and nicely. However as soon as the godfathers of Tiki handed away, lots of their secrecy-shrouded recipes had been additionally misplaced.

Berry sought to protect Tiki’s rum-soaked historical past by monitoring down former bartenders and accumulating outdated texts. In his first e-book, Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log, revealed in 1998, he shared lots of the recipes he had gathered over time, that are nonetheless made in line with the identical specs at bars world wide right now. In truth, we are able to thank Berry for recording Donn Seashore classics together with the Zombie and the Pearl Diver. 

Through the years, Berry put his personal spin on Tiki-canon cocktails, too. He created the Historic Mariner in 1994 as a riff on Dealer Vic’s model of the Navy Grog, which itself was a riff on a Donn Seashore traditional. Berry needed to duplicate the flavors of his favourite Dealer Vic drink, however the gross sales pamphlet he present in his analysis, “Passport to Dealer Vic’s Unique Cocktails,” wasn’t of a lot assist: It listed such obscure substances as “Dealer Vic’s Navy Grog Rum” and “Dealer Vic’s Navy Grog Combine.” As Berry writes in his 2010 e-book, Beachbum Berry: Remixed, “We just about needed to begin from scratch.” 

Why the Historic Mariner Works

The outcomes are nicely value the additional effort. Like Donn Seashore’s model of the Navy Grog, the Historic Mariner features a mix of rums and grapefruit and lime juices. The cut up base combines the earthy sweetness of demerara rum with blackstrap rum; whereas the latter class is not formally designated by the TTB, many bartenders characterize it by its strong, often vegetal or herbaceous notes like fennel, celery, and bittersweet chocolate.

The opposite substances present taste and steadiness. The ratio of freshly squeezed citrus juices to easy syrup provides the drink its sweet-tart chew and contributes to its velvety texture. The allspice dram lends baking-spice notes, and the recent mint garnish lifts the aromatics.

Attempt it your self and toast to the hard-won efforts of Berry and his crew. “We known as it the Historic Mariner as a result of by the point we completed with it, that’s how outdated we felt,” he writes.