Cocktail #2: Zombie King

Intro

I was scrolling the ever useful Tiki Recipes group on Facebook when someone shared their take on the Zombie King from the amazing Strong Water in Anaheim. I’ve been fortunate to go before and sit in Ed Hamilton’s (from Hamilton rum fame) seat in the Captain’s Quarters. It’s truly a special place with a strong cocktail program focused on really elevating tiki to a high craft bar and I can’t wait for an opportunity to visit again.

Focusing back on the cocktail, seems this recipe was first shared on Cocktails Distilled from their bar manager Mauro Hernandez.

Zombie King

Ingredients

• 1 oz dark Jamaican rum (Dagger Blend*)
• 1 oz coconut rum (Planteray Cut & Dry)
• 0.5 oz black rum (swapped with El Dorado 12)
• 1 oz allspice dram (St. Elizabeth’s)
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 0.5 oz cinnamon syrup
• 3-4 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 dash Miracle Mile Toasted Pecan bitters (subbed this with Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters since I had nothing similar ¯(ツ)_/¯)

Garnish:

• Mint (not in original spec)
• Swizzle stick from Curayacu Tiki Bar in Lima, Peru
• Glass from Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, California

Nose:

Gets right into it with Christmas aromas of allspice and clove. Then comes that coconut joy of milk chocolate coconut from the Planteray Cut & Dry. Ends with some mint from w

Mouth:

Definitely a heavy dose of Christmas spice which moves on to taste like a sweet treat of almond milk chocolate, ends on a drier note likely thanks to the El dorado and apple 12 I have in here. Pack a punch of strength to the throat.

As it dilutes chocolate and allspice dram begin to merge and it feels like if coconut joy made a Christmas seasonal varietal, with the nougat having cinnamon clove and allspice. In between you get pops of Jamaican funk due to the blend I chose, whose heavy caramel notes really accentuate the candy bar ness of it all.

After long dilution from feeding a baby for 30 minutes it holds up well, with a spiced iced black tea flavor likely due to the barrel tannins and it’s not overly watery. That allspice pleasantly enough still finds itself with a strong bite at the end.

Verdict: 9/10

A Strong Water certified banger. No surprise from the stellar bar team there. Even with my somewhat drastic deviations (an upscale coconut rum and demerara instead of black rum) it hits, maybe even harder due to me using some nicer ingredients.

Dagger Blend is a rum blend made by a friend, Joe Kennedy, who somehow managed to acquire a 1940’s bottle of the legendary Jamaican Two Dagger Rum used back in the tiki heyday. His reverse engineered blend to approximate the flavor profile is:

• 2 parts Appleton 12
• 1 part Coruba
• 1 part Papalin 5 (or Smith & Cross)

which makes a truly killer Jamaican blend for cocktail use.