There’s always been something cool to me about vintage. Even before nostalgia became the recent pop-culture buzzword. Before speakeasy revival, Gatsby parties, 80’s and 90’s cover bands, and the craft cocktail movement I was driving a 1966 Impala in high school, watching Bogart movies, quoting Hemingway, and scouring thrift stores for antique, but usable household items. Shout out to my grandma’s aluminum ice tray and red velvet lamp; The only two items I took from her apartment when she passed. It’s ok, she was done with them.
I would say enjoying vintage is different from nostalgia because I like stuff from before I was even born. And much like most things amid the din and dither in my head my reasons for being enraptured by old stuffs are legion. As a writer I love the idea of an item having a story around it. Or, perhaps, an item being a fly on the wall for or part of a story that I will never know. An intimate regard shared only by those present. Maybe I like that because I’ve had so many of those secret moments myself. Some so secret I don’t even remember them. Only the rum knows, evermore.
There’s also something simply cool about an object out of time and how much cooler those times were than now. I will pre-warn you about an old man rant coming in 3…2…1 - In the early twentieth century, before fast fashion and text talk, people dressed better and spoke better. If you wanted a new outfit you went to a tailor. If you wanted conversation you went to a public house or wrote a letter. There was innuendo and nuance. Before the internet, for all its wonders, if you wanted information you read a book. When you wanted furniture a craftsman made it and goods were made to last. Food was grown and only available in season. Okay, maybe those days weren’t as cool for people of a certain complexion, but families stayed together and children dressed like cute little street scamps. Notably for our discussion, if you wanted a Caribbean rum someone had to get on a boat and go get it.
I suppose this admiration of vintage encouraged my love for Tiki. Besides my generation of 80’s and 90’s kids growing older but not up, wistful for He-Man and the Burger King Kid’s Club, there’s another kind of nostalgia for vintage that I’ve noticed when it comes to epicureanism. In fine dining, cigar lounges, and cocktail bars, there seems to be an air of classic heritage that never goes out of style. Like a tailored suit. Even if you don’t frequent those kinds of places you’ve inevitably noticed the aesthetic seeping into your local spots touting an “elevated” experience. Here in Nashville, long after the speakeasy trend has died out, every place from dive bars and breweries to steakhouses and music venues can be found brandishing some version of 1920’s or 30’s ephemera. Velvet wingback chairs or a wall of French Victorian art. And I believe this appreciation for mature tastes has found its way to our humble, but ostentatious, genre of Tiki.
A lot of the Tiki bars I’ve visited lately have stopped trying reinvent the lime wheel and returned to a Beachcomber’s/Trader Vic/Luau aesthetic. And, personally, I dig it. I dig it so deep the Easter Island statues better be wearing a codpiece.
This is all on my mind because I’ve vowed to tackle some of the heritage vintage drinks this year. Some of the procrastination has been fear of endeavoring topics that don’t have clear origins or stories. At other times there’s just not enough info to make a full episode. Which is where my creative writing chops will hopefully be up to the task.
We’re going to run into this next issue a lot as we tackle some of these heritage Tiki drinks. The scenario where Donn Beach invents something then every Tom, Dick, and Maui alter the name a bit to release a subpar product in attempt to capitalize on whatever wave of popularity is cresting at the time. Admittedly, a few of the copycat drinks are delightful in their own right. A majority were pilfered or reversed engineered by former Beachcomber staff. Although, my favorite is when Trader Vic puts a drink on the menu that he didn’t create and puts zero effort into figuring it out. For example, how his Suffering Bastard is just a Mai Tai with a floater of overproof rum. The fact that he contributed so much to the genre gives him the pass, but it’s his grousy demeanor that makes the blatant disregard amusing.
This time almost nothing about the drink changes but the name. Another Don The Beachcomber original full of vim and venom. Today we’re biting into the Cobra’s Fang!
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tony and this is Pod Tiki.
True to Beachcomber style Don created the Cobra’s Fang using a blend of dark Jamaican rum and overproof Demerara rum from Guyana, which pretty much make up the quintessential Tiki blend. As a refresher, Don was a master of blending rums from different regions to evolve tertiary flavors. He not only created Tiki, but he created the “Tiki blend” of flavors everyone after him built off. Unfortunately, that is what’s led to some lesser Tiki drinks all tasting the same. But, done correctly they are very unique in all their own ways. As we know.
The Cobra’s Fang is one of Donn’s earliest concoctions appearing circa 1937 and sharing menu space alongside such exotic brethren as the Zombie, Shark’s Tooth, and Vicious Virgin. Any history behind this drink relating to Don The Beachcomber is as elusive as a snake in the grass. Which is surprising as it is one of Don’s diaspora of drinks to later be adopted and adapted by some of the greats including Kon Tiki Ports, by our old friend Steve Crane, and the Lanai, where it became the Cobra and Sidewinder’s Fang, respectively. Well, maybe no so respectively in Steve Crane’s case. See our Test Pilot/Jet Pilot episode to learn what a character that guy was.
I digress, for as popular as this drink seemed to be in the early to mid 1900’s I’m surprised there isn’t a dusty notebook or an aged Filipino bartender unearthed by Jeff Berry who has a story relating to the Cobra’s Fang. But alas, with Donn long gone and first hand accounts fading to time pictures and approximations may be all we ever get of some of these timeless cocktails. And from what we know about Don The Beachcomber I think that’s just the way he would’ve wanted it.
Even in his own recipe books Donn changes the recipes all the time. Or, they come from second hand accounts wherein a cursory glance will tell you if you are into making these drinks that there’s no way the measurements are correct. Sure, palates and tastes of ingredients culturally change over time, but Donn was such a meticulous craftsman and showman that he would never have served an unbalanced cocktail. A man who goes through the trouble of obfuscating his ingredients behind secret codes only his most trusted bartenders are privy to is not going to serve a glass of Hawaiian punch and call it a Tiki drink. In all the years I’ve been reading about Tiki I’ve never come across one of Donn’s codes being deciphered as Hi-C.
The recipe calling for rum, Falernum, citrus, bitters, and a dash of Absinthe is pretty standard fare for Donn. The version we’ll be following here is from liquor.com and is similar to one previously released by Jeff Berry. The only difference being Berry seems to have substituted a key ingredient which was unavailable at the time of his research but is now.
Kon Tiki Ports’ popular version was called the Cobra and came from the notes of Bob Esmino. Bob is in his own right a member of our Tiki totem of fame, I believe we’ve covered his career extensively previously. His is very close to Beachcomber’s Cobra’s Fang recipes but seems to have been streamlined either in an attempt to simplify or because he couldn’t accurately decipher Donn’s blend.
The Cobra is:
1 oz 151 Demerara Rum
½ oz Lime Juice
½ oz Orange Juice
½ oz Passionfruit Syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters
6 drops Pernod
4 oz Crushed Ice
Blend everything for 5 seconds, pour into a 10 oz collins glass, add ice to fill. Initial thoughts? This is a very small drink. Thus, it’s easy to drink it fast. The overproof rum does its job in packing a quick wallop. Flavor wise, it’s a bitter, passion fruit forward, rum punch. It’s good, and it fills the menu space for this flavor profile. The bitterness is actually pleasant and creates a grapefruit or apricot note, even though there’s none of those in there. Which is what I love about Tiki. I get this. It’s light and airy and boozy. I get why this made it onto Kon Tiki Ports menus. It’s not bad, but it’s not Donn Beach.
The drawback of creating something, as we’ve seen in other Don The Beachcomber drinks, is that someone will come along and make a more popular version. Which is exactly what happened when the Lanai began serving the Sidewinder’s Fang.
Owner Emerson Murfee opened the Polynesian themed Lanai bar and restaurant San Mateo, California in 1950 beside the Villa Chartier restaurant previously purchased by Murfee. With the addition of the Villa Hotel in 1956 the area became known as Villa Square. The Lanai remained open till 1988. A pretty good run for a Tiki bar, especially making it into the dark times of cocktailia that was the 1980’s. I was but 8 yrs old in 1988, but I can attest that the 90’s weren’t much better. Postcards from the Lanai show a lavish dining hall featuring loads of wicker, kapa’a weave, exotic plants, Tikis, and tropical landscape murals designed as window views. It looks amazing, but what put the Lanai on the proverbial Polynesian panorama is the Sidewinder’s Fang.
The Sidewinder keeps the integral flavors but streamlines the recipe even more, cutting out bitters and Pernod all together and decreasing the venom by using regular Demerara instead of 151. The Sidewinder’s Fang is:
1 oz Dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz Demerara Rum
1 ½ oz Lime Juice
1 ½ oz Orange Juice
1 ½ oz Passion Fruit Syrup
3 oz Club Soda
Shake everything except club soda with cubed ice and open pour into a large snifter. Stir in club soda and top off with more cubed ice. This is how you will find the Fang served nowadays. In the large snifter with a length of orange peel cut to look like a snake head. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to learn and I admittedly haven’t mastered it so please forgive my meager attempts.
First sip? Tart orange, followed by sour-like blasts of mixed fruit. It’s a thick drink. The slight fizz of soda is a cool trick to “bite” the tongue a little. Just make sure your soda hasn’t lost carbonation or the drink feels like when orange juice begins to turn and gets fuzzy. You want enough carbonation to give the drink texture but not make it into a soda. A cool visual stimulus is when you pour in the club soda in it fizzes the bright citrine drink up towards the flute of the snifter and looks like a science experiment. The rum is all but undetectable, so this could be deliciously dangerous. A few of these may seem harmless, but you may end up doing a bit of sidewinding yourself. Over all, it’s just ok. I don’t like how syrupy it is, even cut with club soda. It’s a big drink and I see why it utilizes cubed ice rather than crushed. It only has a few defining flavor characteristics and crushed ice dilutes them too quickly, where cubed ice melts slower keeping the Sidewinder's Fangs sharp.
You may remember I previously mentioned a forgotten ingredient used in Donn’s original version. It’s really what sets his drink apart from its descendents. Passion fruit syrup has become the standard replacement for Fassionola.
Let’s talk Fassionola syrup. Ok, what is it? Well, it’s often referred to as a fruit punch concentrate. Passion fruit is the prevalent ingredient but it also features strawberry, lime, raspberry, mango, and pomegranate. It’s said in Tiki circles that Donn Beach invented Fassionola, but that is contested by the fact that there are references to red, green, and gold syrups called Fassionola as far back as 1916. By the time Donn made it famous in the 1930’s he was using a red version which became the only Fassionola. I wonder though, if that gold version was in fact passionfruit syrup.
In any case it makes sense because Donn is from New Orleans, where a lot of his recipes glean inspiration, and where if you order a Hurricane now you will get a fruit punch drink instead of the passion fruit flavored concoction we know and love. Fassionola has been substituted with passionfruit syrup ever since it went extinct sometime in the late 50’s as evidenced by the 1962 Cobra’s Fang already using passionfruit. It was known among Tiki archivists as “the lost ingredient.” Now, thanks to the uprise in craft Tiki cocktails, Fassionola is being produced once again. At least the best version we can surmise from long forgotten recitations. So, as much as I disliked the Hurricanes in New Orleans, perhaps there’s some deeper history to why they are prepared as they are. Where New Orleans and Donn Beach are concerned there’s always some deeper history.
Fassionola is said to have been used as a fruit punch concentrate. Having nothing to do with cocktails at all. It’s funny because I always wondered, even as a kid, what fruit punch actually was. The origin of “punch” began in India. The word panj seems to indicate this. So, see, the origins of Tiki really do take inspiration from all over the globe. Panj means five and refers to the ingredients list; spirit, sugar, spice, citrus, and water. A precursor to the Caribbean rhyme one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. The British East India Company brought punch to Europe and on to the West Indies during colonialism. So. all those elementary school birthday parties when we drank fruit punch out of those big cans with two triangle holes punched into the top we were actually enjoying a derivative of Caribbean rum punch. Makes me glad that Tiki drinks come with straws so we all don’t have red stains in the corners of our mouths.
The Fassionola I’m using is from BG Reynold’s. It’s quietly become my go-to brand out of necessity. They use fresh real ingredients and cane sugar rather than corn syrup, so that checks my purist box and they always seem to be available. When my favorite orgeat has been out of stock for years, BG has a great version And when I found a Fassionola syrup made in New Orleans that I figured would be most authentic since that’s it’s purportedly provenance, but the company claimed it was delayed being shipped because of the snow even though I ordered it 5 days prior to the storm… BG had some ready to go. Mostly, they just make really good products that hold up to the scrutiny of Tiki.
In my experience the fresh syrups are only good for about 8 weeks in the fridge after opening, but the bottles are good for reusing for your homemade syrups.
And that concludes the informational portion of our podcast. Shall we make a drink? We shall.
With Fassionola out of the way let’s jump into rums. The Cobra’s Fang calls for a dark Jamaican and an overproof Demerara. I always prefer Myers’s for dark Jamaican rum and since I finally ran out of the big bottle of Plantation OFTD I’ve had for years I think I will try Hamilton 151 Demerara for this drink. I love all of Ed Hamilton’s rums and since the regular Demerara 86 is one of my all time favorite rums for sipping with a cigar I think I’ll give the 151 a go. It doesn’t have as much funk as OFTD, but that smokey Demerara flavor is still there. Now, I’m still steadfast in my aversion to overproof spirits, and I’m sure this bottle will last some time, but you can’t really have a drink called the Cobra’s Fang without a bit of venom!
We’re going to need Falernum, which we know by now is a rum based liqueur from Barbados flavored with citrus and Caribbean spices. As in Donn’s previous recipes the “Absinthe” in question is actually Herbsaint or Pernod. I prefer Pernod, personally. I believe we covered this in the Dr. Funk episode, but I love Absinthe. In fact, it ties in with my love of vintage writing because Hemingway was such a big fan. I frequent Absinthe bars and it’s my preferred after dinner cordial. Notwithstanding the rich history and lore surrounding the green fairy, I don’t think it tastes any different than its cousin Pernod or their American counterpart, Herbsaint. I hate to break it to you, but the amount of wormwood used to flavor even real Absinthe is marginal and has no psychedelic properties.
Lastly, we’ll need Angostura bitters and fresh lime and orange juices. After these many years I shouldn’t have to extol the virtues of squeezing your own citrus. So, if you’re still using jarred juices, well, you deserve each other. Hey, I’m bringing back judging people this year and I judge you if you’re too lazy to squeeze a few limes and oranges. And, I expect to be fully judged and called on my bullshit as well. In fact I have over a thousand responses and counting to a comment I made on some video like 4 months ago in which I claimed that jeans are casual attire and sweatpants are only for the gym or lounging at home. Just my opinion as a man who appreciates when people cared how they present in public. Oh, my! Wow! I have gotten more vitriol from that silly comment than I ever got from my worst enemy. I’ve never gotten anywhere close to that response from anything I’ve ever written about Tiki. Maybe I should try to write something controversial about Hawaiian shirts? Or, maybe it’s just because you guys are cool and don’t take life so serious.
Anyway, the Cobra’s Fang:
1 ½ oz Dark Jamaican Rum
½ oz 151 Demerara Rum
½ oz Falernum
½ oz Fassionola Syrup
½ Lime Juice
½ oz Orange Juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitter
6 drops Pernod
6 oz Crushed Ice
Blend everything for 5 seconds and open pour into a footed pilsner, collins glass, large snifter, or snake themed Tiki mug. According to a picture from a 1940’s Don The Beachcomber’s menu he served his in a curved footed pilsner garnished with mint. I like to incorporate the snake peel even though that came later.
First sip? Donn, you son of a bitch, you’ve done it again! This drink is layered, complex, full flavored but medium bodied, rummy but balanced, exotic, yet fruity. The bright orange hue glows in the flickering dim light like the energy of Maui has imbued it himself and the flavor is?... Well, this might be my new current favorite. It tastes like an exotic fruit punch, for sure. The Fassionola is in perfect harmony with the fruit juices and doesn’t cut sharply or overpower like passion fruit syrup. Truly, it’s one of those ingredients that you can’t pick out but definitely notice when it’s not there. It adds body and texture to the overall cocktail. After a while there really is a fruit punch flavor that rises to the fore. Maybe I’m hyperbolizing because I love this drink so much, but I was skeptical that Fassionola was going to be noticeably different enough from passion fruit. Now, I am a believer. Fassionola is not an overhyped fruit punch syrup. It really does change the way these flavors interact with each other in comparison to the previous derivative drinks.
Even the overproof Demerara rum doesn’t bother me here, instead, its earthiness combined with the burnt molasses of Myers’s adds a smoky note. There’s a hint of peppery anise and sweet dark sugar undertones. All of this within a warm hug of fruity tropicalia.
Make sure to top off with plenty of crushed or pebbled ice. Like most Tiki drinks the ice is an ingredient that affects the flavor via dilution. Before ice they would literally add water to cocktails and even a lot of spirits aficionados laud the addition of a few drops into a fine whiskey.
I have to take a moment and laugh at myself for going so in depth on flavor profiles. It’s all with a grain of Kosher salt on a tongue firmly cemented in cheek. Whatever epicurean endeavors we embark upon, whether it be cocktails, spirits, coffee, cigars, or fine dining, it’s all so subjective and there’s no real way to quantify what is better or worse on the sliding scale of opinion. Sometimes good cocktails are like a magic trick. Knowing how it’s done ruins the illusion. And isn’t that really what Tiki is, an illusion.
I think I finally got a passable snake garnish down even though my wife said it looked like a schlong hanging over the glass. She’s not wrong. I am no master of the peeler. My only advice is to start wide, try to then lower one side of the peeler, creating one side of the snakes head in essence, then continue to spiral cut a long body. I ruined a few oranges before I got a decent snake/schlong garnish.
Irrespective of phallic garnishes all I can say is that after all the copycats, and snake in the grass ex-bartenders, Don the Beachcomber’s original version of the drink he invented is still far and above the finest.
From time to time we all experience life’s fangs and we pick our poison to numb the pain. In this scenario the venom is the antidote.
,Sources: Sippin’ Safari by Jeff Berry, Remixed by Jeff Berry, liquor.com, Wikipedia, tikicentral.com
Most of all thank you for listening and Keepi Tiki!
