Honolulu Cocktail #2

January 4, 2019 by Jennifer

I just got back from Montana where it was sooooo cold. The warmest it ever got was about 25 degrees. When you’re from Southern California where the temperature usually doesn’t go below 50, a high of 25 is pretty damn cold. As much as I love the snow and skiing, when it’s that cold, all I want is to be warm.

But there’s good news. It’s January: that time of year when Tiki the Snow Away takes place. At the beginning of every year bartenders and cocktail aficionados take part in an Instagram event where they each make a tiki cocktail (or 10) over the course of the month. See, tiki drinks are usually comprised of rum and citrus juices, flowers and coconuts, everything that makes one think of vacations on warm, tropical islands. Someplace where the temperature never dips below 75. Someplace I dreamed of going more than once while I was in Montana, especially when the thermometer went below zero.

So, since I occasionally dreamt of warm islands in the South Pacific, I thought I’d participate. And since I was surrounded by snow, I started with my own creation – The Snowball. But today, I thought I’d to go back to the classics and introduce you to the Honolulu Cocktail: a drink that’s not only comprised of Maraschino and gin, but just happens to be named after one of the most tropical locations on the planet.

I know it seems odd that this drink doesn’t have an ounce of rum in it since most tiki drinks do, but there are a few, like the Suffering Bastard and the Mexican El Diablo that don’t. Both of these cocktails have gin and tequila in them proving that the liquor doesn’t necessarily make the drink tiki. A tiki cocktail is a tiki cocktail because of all the citrus in it or if it’s named after a classic tropical city. While there aren’t a lot of tropical juices in this drink, it is named after one of the most well known tropical cities in the world: Honolulu.

Actually this is the Honolulu Cocktail #2. I haven’t made (and won’t) the #1 because unfortunately it’s got pineapple juice in it, a juice to which I’m highly allergic. Actually the #1 is probably closer to a classic tiki drink because it’s made up of orange and lemon juices, but again, that dang pineapple juice. While the #1 has more tropical juices, it doesn’t have rum in it either. Both Honolulu cocktails use gin as their main liquor. But where the #1 uses citrus juices to finish it off, the #2 uses Benedictine and Maraschino. These two liquors make for a stronger cocktail that reminds of somewhere tropical thanks to the herbal Benedictine and sweet Maraschino.

I found this drink in my old 1935 Mr. Boston book. Back then a lot of drinks used equal measurements when mixing cocktails. Sometimes it works, like in the Last Word, and sometimes it doesn’t. This time those equal measurements don’t. It created a drink that was waaaay too sweet. So, I altered it slightly. Instead of using 1 once of each liquor, I used more gin and less of the Benedictine and Maraschino. You still get those sweet, herbal notes, but they’re much more subtle, making for a more palatable drink. A drink that will definitely transport you to a tropical island in the South Pacific. Somewhere there isn’t one flake or snow or a thermometer that ever drops below 70.