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Zombie cocktail with a bottle of falernum.

Zombie Cocktail

Print Recipe
Here's another, quite frankly, amazing Tiki classic, the Zombie.
The Zombie is a cocktail that really lives up to the name. There is plenty of alcohol in the Zombie and it will probably turn you into a walking corpse. Naturally, cocktails usually have alcohol in them, so, if you dare have a Zombie on your own, we suggest drinking slowly and/or keeping it to only one or two cocktails. Alternatively, there's nothing wrong with sharing a cocktail like this with someone else. It's a bit safer and smarter!
We've looked at a few different sources for the "proper" Zombie cocktail recipe. So many of the classic Tiki cocktail recipes by Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic were closely guarded and have evolved over time, so it's hard to know what was being served when these recipes were first invented.
What we do know is that the Zombie was first served in 1933 at Don the Beachcomber. This particular recipe is Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's recipe for the Zombie cocktail and we feel it's relatively accurate, even if it's not 100% the original, which may be lost in time. Sure, this more "accurate" recipe may be a little more complicated than modern spins you can find elsewhere, but if you can get everything together, it's surely worth it!
Total Time 5 minutes
Servings 1 cocktail

Ingredients

  • 45 mL Dark rum preferably Jamaican rum
  • 45 mL Golden rum preferably Puerto Rican rum
  • 30 mL Overproof rum
  • 20 mL Lime juice
  • 15 mL Don's mix recipe below
  • 15 mL Falernum
  • 1 tsp Grenadine
  • 4 dashes Absinthe
  • 1 dash Angostura bitters
  • 170 grams Ice
  • 1 sprig Mint to garnish

Instructions

  • Add all the rums, lime juice, Don's mix, falernum, grenadine, bitters, and ice to a blender.
  • Blend for 5 seconds, ensuring the ice is of a crushed consistency and not watery. It may be worthwhile crushing the ice a bit beforehand.
  • Pour everything into a Tiki glass.
  • Garnish and enjoy.

Notes

*Don's mix recipe: crush three cinnamon sticks and mix them with one cup of sugar and a cup of water. Bring all of this to a boil, making sure the sugar is dissolved. Let your mixture simmer for two minutes then let it sit until cool. Once cool, strain the mixture to remove the solids. Make a mixture of two parts grapefruit juice to one part cinnamon syrup. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
As can be seen by this recipe for the Zombie, it's a strong one! Legend had it that visitors to Don the Beachcomber's bar weren't allowed more than two of these cocktails in a single sitting, which is probably a good idea. It's possible that the Zombie cocktail was first created to cure hangovers, similar to the Corpse Reviver. Although we're sure a cocktail like this would cure a hangover, we're also sure that that's because it would just make you drunk enough to no long care... oh well!
On a final note, we've already mentioned that we've tried to stay as true to the original Zombie recipe as we could find. We also appreciate that there's a lot in here that may be a bit difficult to find for the novice cocktail maker. That's OK! Treat this cocktail recipe as one to work up to. Alternatively, we encourage you to hunt down a more simplified recipe for this recipe, there are tons out there. For us, we'll stick with this bigger recipe, it's fun for people who want to make cocktails based on ingredients they have! Something to discover once they've built up their bar enough.