Cuban Colada

After a lengthy hiatus (almost 18 months), and thanks to a little urging from others, I have decided to try to restart my cocktail blogging efforts.

Given that rum is my spirit of choice (which is not to say I don't love everything), and I'm a huge 'tikiphile', let's kick-start with one of my own Tiki cocktails.

For those unfamiliar with it, Tiki is a classic cocktail style, filled with faux Polynesian frippery and questionable garnishes. Rum, fruit and manifold obscure ingredients are the order of the day: orgeat (almond syrup); falernum (spiced lime); cinnamon syrup. If you love Pina Coladas, grass skirts and ukulele music then you'll feel right at home. They're often on the unrefined side, and are "fun", as opposed to the sometimes haughty austerity of prohibition/speakeasy/vintage cocktail stylings.

This is a recipe I'm still refining, so I reserve the right to change the details in the future!

Tiki, unlike many other 'purer' cocktail disciplines, has no shame about using absolutely tons of ingredients rather than the 3-4 used in more conventional mixology

50ml Havana Club Anejo Especial (Golden Rum)
15ml Lemonhart 151 (Overproof Rum)
50ml Pineapple Juice
35ml Lime Juice
10ml Falernum
5ml Orgeat (almond syrup)
5ml Cinnamon Syrup
3 dashes Cherry Bitters (Fee Brothers)

Be warned, the above will make a very full martini glass (as you can see below) - make sure you have a 250ml glass, or down-size the recipe accordingly. With shaken pineapple juice, you get a lovely foamy head - depending on what's to hand, I sometimes think that this is 'garnish' alone, though you can feel free to add anything you want here e.g. exotic flower petals. On this occasion though, I added some cocktail cherries at the bottom. I'm one of those terrible bar-tenders that thinks a Maraschino Cherry can be put into almost anything made from dark spirit; and most other things for that matter.

1. Chill down a martini glass (crushed ice if you have it, cubed ice in water if not).
2. Shake all ingredients, except bitters, with ice
3. Empty glass and put in a few dashes of bitters
4. Double-strain in to glass and serve without garnish

Recipe above only makes ONE of these!

This is still in 'prototype' phase, so let me know how you like it! Happy for constructive views on how to make this even better.