There are very few tiki cocktails that call for a whiskey or a bourbon. Most of these concoctions use a rum, or a gin, or even a brandy as their main spirit — fruity, sweet, and fun tropical elements. Whiskey just doesn’t fit that vibe… usually. But I recently tried this cocktail as part of my review for Wilmington Distillery’s Carolina Regulator Whiskey and discovered a possibly perfect whiskey-based tiki drink.
This was an idea I originally picked up from my review of the Lemon Hart Rum, whose marketing materials recommended this combination as something they call the “1804” (named after the founding year of the original brand). It’s basically an old fashioned (spirit, sugar, and bitters) but with tiki specific elements, like falernum instead of simple syrup and tiki bitters instead of the angostura variety. I gave it a shot with their rum, and while it was good, I still found it to be a little bitter and overpowering.
A few weeks later I saw those tiki bitters sitting on my shelf and thought to myself, why not? What if we just give it a shot with whiskey? And good thing that I did, because this is delicious.
What really makes this cocktail delicious is the combination of the baking spices from all that time this whiskey spent in oak casks and the added tropical spices from the falernum and tiki bitters. All of those elements come together to make something sweet and spicy, with distinct elements of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and some tropical fruit thrown in for good measure.
Ingredients
- 2 oz. Well aged whiskey (Straight Bourbon preferred)
- 1 oz. Falernum
- 2 dashes Elemakule Tiki Bitters
Add everything to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well chilled. Pour into a tiki glass or a large rocks glass with crushed ice and serve.
Some people are going to call me out for throwing an old fashioned into a cocktail shaker. My response: sue me. I’m already suggesting that you put straight bourbon whiskey and falernum in the same glass — this isn’t making the situation any more or less blasphemous than it already is.
If you give this a try, let me know how it turns out in the comments!