How to Make a Real Tiki-Fire – High Fire
A lot of Tiki drinks use fire. However, it does not do the trick to just pour 151 rum over a sugar cube. For a real Tiki-fire you need a secret ingredient. On top of that, I decided to come up with a Vulcano Bowl style drink using rum and cognac. It basically means that this is a combination of the Champs-Élysées and my own White Bird cocktail.
For a great Tiki-Fire you need two things: Lemon extract and a sugar cube or bread crumbs. The advantage is that the fire does not burn with a blue flame, but with a bright orange one. I read about this trick in the excellent book Smuggler’s Cove. For a suitable drink I chose to combine two drinks I really like into one big Tiki drink. In this case, I chose the Champs-Élysées and a Jungle Bird variation the White Bird. However, I also thought that the drink could use some more exotic fruit notes. So, I added blood orange juice and honey to the mix. As far as the spirits go: I chose the excellent Veritas Rum from Velier a blend of pot-still rum from Hampden and column still rum from the Foursquare. On top of that, I opted for the Pierre Ferrand Ambré, because of its youthful fruitiness.
6 cl Pierre Ferrand Ambre Cognac
3 cl Luxardo Bitter Bianco
3 cl Chartreuse Verte
5 Dashes Angostura Bitters
3 cl Lemon Juice
3 cl Blood Orange Juice
6 cl Pineapple Juice
3 cl Honey Mix
Add ingredients to blender – blend with 360 ml crushed ice and four to six ice cubes – fill into Tiki Bowl with ice cubes – three glass straws;
Garnish: Dried orange wheels – burning sugar cube;
Song: Matthew And The Atlas – High Fire
The drink starts off with a clear cut rum note and some sweetness from the liqueurs. Next you can taste the orange juice and some cognac notes. Furthermore, there are underlying herbal and bitter notes. The drink reminds me a bit of the Jungle Bird with a little bit of Chartreuse thrown into the mix. As it should be the case with typical Tiki drinks, all the different flavours kind of blend together and form something bigger.
