Scorpion Bowl

This cocktail is insane! The Scorpion Bowl is intended to be shared, and once you see what goes into it and at what quantities, you'll understand why. The recipe is a mixture of Gin, Rum, Brandy, Orgeat, Simple Syrup, Orange Juice, and Lime Juice. It's quite a few ingredients, but thankfully nothing too unusual for this Tiki classic.

Traditionally, the Scorpion Bowl is shared out of a purpose made bowl. People sharing the cocktail drink it out of long straws. You likely don't have a proper Scorpion Bowl at home, and that's OK. You can serve this cocktail in a jug then pour it into glasses for everyone to enjoy. Alternatively if you have a bowl big enough it may be fun to share, but it's doesn't have the same presentation. The final alternative is to simply make a smaller batch by adjusting the ingredients so everyone gets a single serving.

However you like to serve a Scorpion Bowl, it's a great cocktail with plenty of kick!

Total Time 6

Servings 1 batch

Ingredients

120 mL Golden Rum
120 mL Gin a London Dry works best
60 mL Brandy
60 mL Orgeat
45 mL Simple Syrup*
120 mL Orange Juice
60 mL Lime Juice
Garnish with grated nutmeg

Instructions

Working with so much liquid can be difficult. If you have two cocktail shakers, we suggest shaking everything (except for the garnish of course!) with ice in the two shakers. If you're handy you can do this yourself or get a friend to help. From there you can open pour (i.e. pour with the shaker ice) into your bowl or jug. Alternatively, mix everything with ice in a large jug.
Garnish in a shared bowl or pour into individual glasses and garnish.
Enjoy!

Notes

The Scorpion Bowl comes from Trader Vic but was more likely invented in Hawaii before it was brought back to the mainland to be served in Trader Vic's cocktail bars. With that in mind, there are more than a few recipes for this awesome cocktail. You may be able to find other recipes that are just for a single serving, or using slightly different ingredients and ratios and methods. It's been around for awhile so plenty of people have had a play with it.

We Have More to Say on the Scorpion Bowl

As the title would suggest, we have more to say on this cocktail, but also, what more can we say about this amazing drink! The idea of a communal cocktail may sound like a strange one to some, but the way it’s served everyone is supposed to drink it with a long straw rather than everyone sipping from the same glass. As mentioned, if serving at home, you may not have the right kind of bowl, let alone a bunch of long straws, so feel free to divvy this drink up into its own individual glasses as needed.

If you are looking at separating the Scorpion Bowl into multiple glasses, and if you’re bad at math, the total volume of all the ingredients here is 585 mL, 300 mL of that made up of liquor (Rum, Gin, and Brandy). Decide for yourself what seems “reasonable” in terms of what everybody gets for their serving, factoring in the amount of alcohol that’s in a serving.

Can I make more of a Scorpion Bowl if I have more people to share it with?

Of course! The only limitation is the cocktail shakers. As mentioned, you’re already going to have trouble fitting one “serving” into a cocktail shaker, so you may need to do multiple batches in a row if you want to make a lot. That’s fine, just be prepared for a lot of shaking and you’ll be able to make enough Scorpion Bowl to go around.

Can I pre-make the Scorpion Bowl

It shouldn’t be too much of a problem to pre-prepare everything, especially if you’re considering sharing this with a few people.

That being said, shaking citrus is different from stirring citrus, so leaving it may take away some of the shaken texture. The best thing to do, if you want to pre-prepare, is to get your fresh juices ready and also measure everything out and ready to go. Then it’s just a matter of quickly shaking everything before serving.

What’s the perfect time for a Scorpion Bowl?

Being a cocktail that’s meant to be shared, the Scorpion Bowl is perfect when you have a group of people who all want to try a wonderful cocktail! If you can find a bar that makes one of these, we highly encourage you to order one! Otherwise invite some friends around to make one! Try your best to find a suitable bowl and serve it up for everybody to enjoy. When to serve it in the night then becomes the question.

Do you start the evening with your communal cocktail? Perhaps it’s a good ice breaker… or do you wait until everybody has had a drink or two so they’re all a bit more comfortable getting a bit close to share one of these.

Either way, the best time to have one of these is when you have friends to share it with. It also means that you’ll have plenty of other ingredients on hand to keep the cocktails flowing with similar recipes.

Is the Scorpion Bowl a strong cocktail?

Well, that very much depends on how many people you’re sharing it with. As mentioned, there’s a total of 300 mL of booze in this recipe, which, if the drink was intended for one person, would be quite a lot! However, if shared with ten people, it’s actually a relatively small amount. That being said, we don’t see you sharing a Scorpion Bowl with ten people… We’re going to say that if this recipe if shared between five, it has an average amount of alcohol in it for cocktails. If you’re sharing between four or fewer people, that’s when this drink starts to become a little strong.

What’s the best music to put on with a Scorpion Bowl going?

We’re going to leave the music selection up to you and your friends! After all, we see you having some friends over and making one of these for everyone to share. They’re your friends, you know what they like!

Although the Scorpion Bowl may be the centre piece of the evening, it’s your party. So the music that goes best with this cocktail will very much depend on the type of party you’re having. Just don’t forget to invite us!

Once you’re done with your Scorpion Bowl, make more cocktails!

As mentioned, there’s plenty of ingredients in a Scorpion Bowl, so you’ll likely be able to make a few other cocktails with what you have out. We’ve linked to different sections of the website to get you started:

All Tiki cocktail recipes: let’s start with some Tiki cocktails. You already have all the fruit juices, the Orgeat, and plenty of different spirits.

Top 10 Rum cocktail recipes: if you want to find out what our favourite Rum cocktails are, you can find them in this list. We hope you like them as much as we do!

Top 10 Gin cocktail recipes: as with the Rum, these are our favourites, except with Gin this time. Again, we hope you like them as much as we do.