I love this drink! Sometimes tiki drinks are so sweet they’re hard to sequence in a dinner situation; with the Campari I feel like it takes the tiki paradigm and makes it work in the before-dinner context.

Yeah, 100% the dragon fruit! I was shocked at the color; it’s a super deep purple with these small black seeds, and in the puréed form in which I got it, it was super goopy and thick.

Well, new place on my list! I didn’t know Eleven Madison Park had a downstairs cocktail bar 👀

Sounds wonderful and looks great! Many tiki drinks end up looking a dull brown, but this one has a great color to it.

I always look for Valencia, but couldn’t find them this time! So I had to settle for navel here, and it was ok, we all survived 😂

Hi, Harley!

I’ve really enjoyed Del Maguey, as well as Sombra. But I also like trying new ones that I come across!

Oh wow, I just eeked in there with my Mai Tai! And it goes without saying that you took three of the top 5 spots… kudos!

Thanks for the list.

Not sure, it might! Good suggestion on a little bit of spice, I bet that would add a great dimension!

I love that swizzle! Too bad chartreuse is so hard to come by now. Still working through old bottles?

I found it to be pretty well balanced! Probably depends a bit on how wild your mezcal is, too. This one is pretty smoky, which helps.

I hadn’t heard of it until I got a tiki cocktail book; it comes up a lot in that context! It’s a super syrupy, sweet, warm spiced liqueur. It’s really quite delicious!

What in the world! I love this idea, it reminds me of something I saw in an Aviary book with popcorn-infused whiskey.

I find that name to be write funny. Looks good!

That looks great, regardless of the color!

This one is saved for next time I get port; it looks delicious!

The bitters are so good. It gives a drink some heat, but somehow not the same spice as some of the other spicy bitters on the market (some tiki ones, I have a habanero one that’s pretty good). It’s more warm and full-bodied I think.

Aside: I love mapo tofu. It’s one of my go to crowd pleaser recipes, and I can make it as hot as I please (I do not live in a spice tolerant place 😩)

I didn’t make the bitters, but I’d imagine you could soak roughly cracked peppercorns in some neutral high-proof spirit for a week and end up with something tasty! Here’s what I was using: https://www.dashfire.us/cocktailbitters

Posting to lemmy when you don’t have power is dedication

Stay safe!