In the art of Tiki we owe so much to Jamaica. Literally, in the sense of the most widely utilized style of rum, there are few classic Tiki drinks that don’t call for some measure of Jamaican rum, and figuratively, by way of a culture and terrain which sets the scene for our idea of tropical.
Southeast of disorder, and the crazy-wang of the U.S. we call Florida, lies the third largest island in the West Indies. While driving along the coast from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios our driver facetiously pointed out the bay where Columbus “discovered” them. Of course, in my head I thought since he was of African descent his people wouldn’t have been there when ol’ Colombo came ashore. That would’ve been Taino natives. The very same who inhabited Cuba and are the progenitors of modern cigars.
When I began Pod Tiki I was travelling a lot. The premise of the show was supposed to be me going to tropical locales and sharing my personal experiences as a framing narrative to talk about cocktails. Then, my life pivoted, as lives tend to do at the most inconvenient of times with no regard to one’s plans whatsoever. What’s that old saying about how to make GOD laugh? I’ve had some amazing experiences since then exploring places in my home country and the misses and I have some overseas excursions in the works for next year. Yet, something in the recesses of my soul keeps me umbilically connected to the tropics; And the place that stands out to me so far as the ideal of “topical” is Jamaica.
Swaying Royal Palms lining the street through the slats of wooden jalousie windows. Cool Kenny’s nightly rum punch on the veranda. Warm limbic waters placidly lapping over ocean sands so soft it’s no wonder they call it a sea bed. Walking seaside to the end of Kent Avenue where a tiny beach shack served up coconut Wray & Nephew with Coke. Silhouettes of palm trees on the mountain encircling the bay under a purple sky at dusk, and exploring little beaches around the island all as picturesque. This is my tropical paradise. When I close my eyes it’s where I go.
The song 6 Days on my EP, (Available on Spotify. Search - Tony Manfetano. Shameless plug), was about my best friend and I being stranded on the island during a hurricane that didn’t affect us at all but closed airports in Florida so we couldn’t get home. My situation is no aviation…
But, it’s not just my intimate regard that carries the proverbial torch for Jamaica. This Caribbean nation has stood as a foundation for so much of the iconography utilized in Tropiki. From the discovery of the New World to Captain Morgan’s conquest to Errol Flynn’s debauchery to Donn the Beachcomber’s exotica Jamaica has been the canvas on which our portrait of tropicalia has been fashioned. In every brush stroke of history a new and nuanced notion of paradismal paradox. Oh, and who could forget the rum?
In fact, we’re going to celebrate this island’s wonderful rum in today’s cocktail. A delightfully esoteric local concoction called Tradewinds.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tony and this is Pod Tiki.
Before Haile Selassie, Bob Marley, or Usain Bolt. Before Buccaneers, slavers, and the English crown. Way before white boy reggae, the bobsled team, and bloviating Tiki podcasts, there were Taino. The Taino were one of the largest groups, besides the Caribe peoples for which the Caribbean is named, to inhabit the West Indies. Why do we call it the West Indies? Well, because Columbo got lost and thought Key West was Asia. Good thing he didn’t show up during Fantasy Fest. The Florida Straits may’ve ended up as the Florida Gays!
The Taino are presumed to have arrived on the island they called Xaymaca from South America around 800. A mostly agrarian people who shared a dialect with mainland’s Arawak, the Taino are interpreted as being more peaceful than their Caribe neighbors. As previously hinted they were among the first to cultivate tobacco for smoking. They would bunch it up in primitive cylindrical shapes and smoke in a ceremony called the Cohiba worshipping the god Behike. My cigar smokers out there will recognize those names.
They enjoyed a pretty long run till 1494 when ol’ Christopher Columbus showed up. If you’re saying, “Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute. The ocean blue was sailed in 1492!” You’re correct. Columbus didn’t make it over to Jamaica till his second voyage to the New World. Lucky them. The story gets pretty bleak at this part. We should all know what happened. Indigenous Tainos began dying off exponentially due to disease or enslavement under Spanish rule. Both, in most cases. Though, some Tainos managed to escape into the mountains forming breakaway tribes called Maroons. Having no contact outside their small groups these sovereign Maroons lend their etymology to the phrase “being marooned”. With the labor force in such decline African slaves began being imported, sparking a slave trade that would last for centuries and subsequently populate the island.
Something I didn’t know before studying for this episode was that there was also a large contingent of Jews during this time who fled to Jamaica fearing the Spanish Inquisition. This will come back up later.
This is where it gets interesting. You see, once the English got wind of all this colonizing going on across the pond they said, “hold my tea”, and decided today was their day to get some of that sweet-sweet sugarcane profit. Pun intended. (That’s one of the benefits of being a dad, I always intend my puns.) Thusly, they sent William Penn and Robert Venables to invade Jamaica in 1655. After two years of battles the Maroons came down from the mountains and fought for the English. Subsequently, they overtook the Spanish in Ocho Rios and assumed control of the island.
Now it gets more interesting. As Spain made several attempts to recapture the island the British employed privateers to engage Spanish ships. Issuing letters or marque to bands of pirates known as Buccaneers. The most famous of which was led by one Captain Henry Morgan. Skipping ahead over a montage of battles Captain Morgan set up shop in the Jamaican town of Port Royal. Now, Port Royal was already established as a major port city in the Caribbean but, after oh captain, my captain arrived with his band of merry men it might as well have been the pirate version of Fantasy Fest. Well before Blackbeard left footprints in the sand at Nassau, Port Royal was the first real pirate haven. After another debaucherous montage, Port Royal ended up resembling scenes from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Drinking, gambling, ladies of ill repute. Agast!
From Port Royal Captain Morgan launched some of his most lucrative raids including Panama and Maracaibo. Another pirate montage and, oops, there might’ve been a nip slip in that one, aaaand, we’re to 1674 when Captain Henry Morgan became the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. For he was technically not a pirate, but a privateer under the auspices of the British crown and his raids garnered enough riches to make the head that wears the crown even heavier.
Later in his governorship it’s said that Morgan began persecuting pirates in order to clean up Port Royal, though, a conspiracy persists that this was a clever ruse and he actually showed clemency to many privateers turned pirate who sailed alongside him. Captain Morgan died in 1688, in no short measure due to his proclivity for alcohol. It seems only Papa Hemingway himself rivaled the good captain for indulgence. They were very “spirited” individuals, if you catch my drift. It seems Captain Morgan cut such a large figure that even the land itself could not sustain without its patron because in 1692, four years after Morgan’s demise, an earthquake crumbled Port Royal into the sea.
The next montage is kinda boring but it takes us all the way to 1838 when England finally emancipated all slaves under the crown. This wasn’t an immediate fix as indentured servants from China and Southeast Asia now filled those roles. In fact, many Jamaicans today are of mixed descendancy from Africans and Asians as well as the Jews who took refuge there centuries earlier. Rastafarianism is, after all, an Abrahamic religion.
Another thing I hadn’t realized is how new Jamaica is as a nation. In 1958 Jamaica became part of the Federation of the West Indies under British rule. It wasn’t till 1962 that Jamaica gained independence, although it still operates as a commonwealth of Great Britain. A constitutional monarchy with its own parliamentary government under the current King Charles III as its sovereign.
In the modern day Jamaica held onto its seductive and lecherous pastimes becoming the “party house” of the Caribbean. A place where the parents are never home so the party rages well into the decades. At the center of this midcentury debauchery was the Myrtle Bank Hotel hosting notables the likes of Winston Churchill, Louis Armstrong, Walt Disney and most heathenistic of them all, Errol Flynn.
We’re not going to go too in depth on the Myrtle Bank as there are other cocktails born there that will serve as a deep dive into that historic tropical temple. However, I cannot understate the significance of Myrtle Bank as pretty much party central for Jamaica. Throughout the Podcast I’ve made various references to Errol Flynn’s less than savory nature and I promise I will pay that off this year with an autumnal pick me up. (If you know, you know.)
I’ll say here that before Cuba became “prohibition playground” Jamaica, and specifically the Myrtle Bank Hotel, in Kingston, was capital T The place to see and be seen and then not be seen by Hollywood elites and voyeurs alike. I mean, we’re talking about the place where the modern Planter’s Punch was invented. (See that episode for full disclosure.) But, while Flynn’s suave pencil thin mustache spent time in the clammy tropical regions rubbing up against other people’s clammy tropical regions Mr. Ernest Gantt, better known to us as Donn The Beachcomber, was putting his time in Jamaica to good use inventing a lifestyle.
Circa 1927 a young Donn Beach was circling the Caribbean. Being the master raconteur that he was I doubt we’ll ever know the true story of his early life, but by his own account after he got too big for rum running through the gulf he set out to explore the islands. Running booze from the Caribbean, through the gulf, and into Louisiana was a popular route during prohibition. So, this part could check out. With some reports having him spend time in Jamaica as a child I like to think he started off there and slowly made his way from port to port gathering not only trinkets and tropical detritus, but also an acute understanding of rum from each island region.
I’ve read a lot about Donn Beach and to my knowledge there’s no real account of his travails through the Caribbean. An irrefutable fact is that Donn knew his craft inside and out and understood how to ply that craft in a way no one had ever imagined - his Rhum Rhapsodies. Pioneering the idea of blending rums from different regions to create abstract and layered new flavors his cocktails were truly songs. Beautiful sonnets elating all the senses with tales of exotic places far far away. And like a good song, there is a through-line. A chord in which the rest of the melody clings to or searches for such that even in the throws of the wildest jazz or ethereal exotica there’s a familiar note hanging like a beam from a lighthouse. In Donn Beach’s rhapsodies that chord was Jamaican rum.
His first famous drink, the Zombie, is a perfect example of this. Before bolstering the body with light Spanish style rum, then punching us in the tongue with bold rum from the Demerara River, he laid a foundation by way of dried fruit and molasses notes found in dark Jamaican rum.
About now, those of you with better rum knowledge than me are grumbling to yourself about how many different kinds of rum there are in Jamaica alone. Thus, referring to Jamaican rum as a sovereign style is misleading. I will do my best to run through several styles of Jamaican rum when we get to the ingredients.
Whether it was the promethean Planter’s Punch, Don the Beachcomber’s Zombie, or Trader Vic’s Mai Tai the most infamous Tiki drinks are indeed predicated on Jamaican rum.
Jamaica remains a source of inspiration evidenced by how reggae has spread to white people from the mid-Atlantic all the way to california and even crossed the great Pacific to hawaii like so many out-rigger canoes. How we’ve turned reggae into club music, ganja into medicine, and relegated Rastafarianism to colorful knit caps with sewn in dreadlocks shows the sad truth and the pervasive cultural influence Jamaica has had on the U.S. I’m kinda serious about the Rasta caps. What other religion gets so openly mocked? Then again, I have seen people go as Jesus for Halloween. So, there’s that.
Now, like every good history lesson should be, we’re going to follow it up with a libation! Let’s make a drink.
Let's run through the other ingredients first so we can spend time on Jamaican rum. First let’s talk about the recipe. I came upon this drink in Jeff Berry’s book Remixed. With not much story on its history I reached out to Jeff. Being the gracious and knowledgeable fellow he is, Jeff was able to tell me he found the recipe in a xeroxed copy of a book called The Jamaican Bartender. This source had no noted author and none of the recipes cited any ownership other than they were, "submitted by recognized bartenders from most of the major hotels island-wide."
Jeff took a liking to the Tradewinds and published it in his early book, Taboo Table. It was republished in Remixed in 2009 where he tooled it up to a communal beverage serving 4. He was kind enough to forward me this singular recipe from his original xeroxed copy.
3/4 oz. Light Rum
3/4 oz. Dark Rum
3/4 oz. Apricot Liqueur
3/4 oz. Coconut Cream
1 oz. Lemon Juice
Blend with shave ice [ I USED 1 CUP CRUSHED ICE ]
This is the recipe I’m using here. In his publications Jeff turned the light rum into light Puerto Rican rum and the dark into dark Jamaican rum. This presumably based on the tenor of other recipes in his copy and an understanding of common practices at the time and place.
For PR rum one can use Bacardi, Don Q, Havana Club Anejo Blanco, or any clear Spanish style. My apricot liqueur is Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot. The same we used in the Hotel Nacional cocktail last episode. After using it in a few drinks now I understand why it’s one of the industry standards. It offers a good fruit flavor without being cloyingly sweet. I used Coco Lopez for the coconut cream. This is the brand professional Tiki bartenders and writers recommend. I’ve used a few different ones, including Goya or that one that comes in the squeeze bottle, which is way easier to use and keeps a lot longer. Once you open a can of Coco Lopez it’s open and you have only so long to use it. The differences are negligible but, I’m still a purist at heart so I stuck with the messy can. Then there’s fresh lemon juice. This brightens the drink up and works remarkably well with coconut cream, which I was not expecting.
Finally, we get to Jamaican rum. The various brands of Jamaica offer all kinds of rums in the more traditional sense of white, gold, or dark. Although, Jamaica stands out with the prevalence of its black rums. A defining factor of Jamaica rum is what you may’ve heard been called the “funk”. This is a ripe fruit/burnt molasses note that is created in a few ways. In the case of the black blending rums, the ones most utilized in Tiki mixing, this flavor stems from the further addition of molasses at the end of distillation. That’s where the rich burnt sugar flavor comes from. The other reason Jamaican rum is known for a funky flavor is the use of Pot Distillation.
The most widely used method of distillation is using a column still. After fermentation molasses is distilled down to a clear super clean spirit and then bolstered back into the flavorful expression we all know and love through aging. This is a continuous system and is able to refine and distill large quantities of rum. Pot Still distillation, on the other hand, is more akin to your standard moonshine rig. In a copper pot fermented molasses is distilled in individual batches. This type of distillation retains more concentrated esters in the rum. Esters are the chemical compounds formed in rum distillation that give it those dried burnt fruit notes. These are created in all rums but usually filtered or distilled out. In Pot Still Jamaican rum these flavors are not only left in, but highlighted.
That’s the science, but personally, I never was good at chemistry. I’m definitely the Jessie Pinkman in this scenario. Therefore, let’s try to say this in working man’s rum speak. Wray & Nephew Overproof. RumFire. Smith & Cross. Open the bottle and smell. Straightaway you’ll recognize a pungent, ripe banana note. Take a sip and those characteristics bleed into your taste and olfactory senses. That’s pot still at its fullest strength. A dark Jamaican rum like Myers’s or Coruba has those notes, but they’re dampened through proofing down and the addition of dunder. Dunder is a small concentrated amount of a previous distillate added into a fresh batch. This could also include some additional molasses as stated earlier. This renders a darker, more dried fruit, richness. Esters can also be aged out of Jamaican rum making it smoother and bringing mild fruit and sweetness to the fore. Think, a nice cognac. This is presented in higher end offerings like Hampden Estate. The latter being a staple among connoisseurs, but slept on a bit in the sipping rum world. The price tag isn’t what I’d call inclusive, but a bottle a year for special occasions is well worth the price of admission. Now, open a bottle of beloved Appleton Estate and you’ll notice almost no funk at all. This is due to the fact that Appleton uses a combination of pot and column stills. We get some of the deep rich essence but in a crisper milder delivery. In these rums depth and complexity is added through aging.
This is a very basic overview of an intricate process but, I hope it explains some of the wild variance that can occur in rums even of similar providence. These differences in rich culture and terroir are the reason why so many of us are beguiled into this strange and tropical realm of rum.
You may’ve heard me refer to Jamaican rum as British style. This style of rum refers to any of the rum producing colonies under British rule. Jamaica and Guyana being the most prevalent. Rums distilled in these regions would occasionally be sent off to England for aging until it was discovered that the Caribbean climate was necessary to render the desired results. Nowadays, as is the case with Smith & Cross, I believe, the rum is distilled and aged in Jamaica before being sent to England for bottling. The history of rum and His Majesty’s Navy is detailed in our Navy Grog episode which I highly recommend. A brief recap; The British Navy included rum rations as part of a sailors pay from 1655 all the way up 1970. This tradition ended on 1 July 1970 on a day known as “Black Tot Day”, when British Naval ships were ordered to dump all remaining barrels of rum rations overboard. After a day long party to drink up as much as possible, of course. Think about all that rum sitting on the bottom of the English Channel. If Mer-folk do exist, they had quite the party that night.
In 2016, Jamaican rum was granted geographical indication protection. It’s one of the only regulations in rum production and solidified Jamaican rum as the venerable genre defining spirit it is. For use in the Tradewinds cocktail I’m choosing my favorite dark Jamaican mixing rum, Meyers’s Dark. I feel like it has more funk, complex fruitiness, and nuanced depth than its cousin Coruba, which aids in standing out amid the strong flavors of Tiki.
Tradewinds is a slushy blended concoction and there isn’t any style of drinking vessel mentioned. So, I chose to use a coconut Tiki mug. A cocktail umbrella and my bamboo glass straw from Surfside Sips act as the only garnish but, I can see a mint sprig adding to the freshness of the experience.
Okay, first sip? Wow! Tangy with light creamy undertones. Like an apricot version of creamsicle. I expected a coconut cream bomb as often is the case with that ingredient, but this is certainly not that. This is balanced and nuanced and down right delicious! Not what I expected, at all. The lemon juice certainly brightens up the drink but dark rum is definitely present in the base notes.
This is really a wonderful drink to highlight and feature Jamaican rum in a cocktail that represents the island without being just another punch. In that vein I’m curious what some overproof Wray & Nephew would do in here instead of light Puerto Rican rum.
Overall, Tradewinds is what a pina colada becomes when it graduates college, throws away all the empty bottles of Absolut above the cabinets, and learns how to drink with class. It’s the Target to Pina Colada’s Walmart. I simply can’t say enough about how this drink blew me away and with an open can of coconut cream I venture the misses and I will be enjoying these by the pool for weeks to come.
You know, in all facets of cocktalia there are classics, and Tiki is no different. We’ve covered a lot of them on this podcast. Yet, exploring all the spinoffs and local libations can be like visiting a tropical destination. You can stay at the resort, enjoying a curated idealistic experience, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You could walk around town to explore a bit more immersive culture, stopping in to expat bars and eateries. Perhaps taking in some regional music and art. Or, if you’re willing to expose yourself, you may venture towards some of the uncomfortable undergoings that take you deep into the belly of the local zeitgeist. Dancehalls, street parties, sidewalk vendors. Maybe you even forgo a taxi opting for Mini Moke transportation in a foreign place where road signs are more of a suggestion. A place where the drinks are not as tropical in name but are simple mixes of heavy rum and cola. Perhaps a Dragon Stout. A place where you toss your cigar away because it gives you away but, someone hands you something rolled fat and smelling like the basement in the house you grew up in in a suburb of New York when your dad would take the Christmas decorations out in late autumn. A place where beautiful dark women in scant skintight dresses throw their bodies of exaggerated proportions against you on a dance floor throbbing under the weight of clubhouse reggae music. A place and time when said time loses its hold on your temporal senses and the night becomes blips of scenes. Scenes of music, bodies, smoke and tropical indulgence. Scenes that you try to hold onto, but not terribly hard because there’s a feeling that in that moment you are meant to be doing exactly what you’re doing and only in that moment of all the moments that will ever be and that moment is not meant for any of the moments that will ever come. And the chord that’s holding this beautiful cacophony together is … Jamaican rum. And in the morning you wake up to a warm breeze breathing across your face and you’re not anxious or distraught because you understand that it is the Tradewinds.
Sources: Remixed and Potions of the Caribbean by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, Wikipedia.com, jamaicahotelhistory.com, Google A.I.
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Most of all thank you for listening. My name is Tony and this has been Pod Tiki.