I miss Minneapolis. There’s really no way around it. Normally I satisfy this by going back 2-3 times a year, tacitly convincing y’all that I’m Minnesotan. I miss best friends, I miss long summer days, I miss VFW bingo, I miss urban waterfalls, I miss Grain Belt, and strangely, despite living next to the ocean, I miss lakes.
Of course there is also an aspect of pining that goes along with thinking about Minneapolis, casting back to my 20s, remembering perhaps what was not a simpler time, but one I’ve been able to convince myself is simpler from time to time. So what was that simpler life like?
I can’t really say it was better, in many ways it really wasn’t, but it’s easy to romanticize one’s 20s, when you are perhaps finally really experiencing the terrifying freedom that life has to offer for the first time. Sometimes I remember what drinking was like back then. In an era before the craft beer explosion craft cocktails, before I ever really knew what tiki was, before a lot else in life, defined by cheap pitchers of Grain Belt at the CC, a lot of Summit EPA, the nebulous and still mysterious to me 2:1 deals of Liquor Lyle’s, and of course…the “Polynesian Drinks” of the Red Dragon.
That was the site of value drinking for birthdays and parties, a place that I have pretty fixed memories of before the smoking ban went into effect just being this constant haze, with its permanently graffitied bathrooms, impeccably curated jukebox, and pirate bartender. I have even eaten food there more than once (it wasn’t that great, but more surprisingly, wasn’t that bad either). It is the kind of bar you shared tables with strangers and shared stories. Hell, I even met someone I dated for a while that way. I remember learning of this place from a dear friend’s older sister, the wisdom passed on from one generation to the next. This is the Red Dragon.
If you will allow me a brief interlude, the very first time I went there, my roommate and I ran into a local DJ who had obviously had some drinks that night (I know now likely only one given how strong they are), and he came up and put his arms around us and slurred “get this bitches some Wondrouses”. For years I thought he said Wanderers, because that’s what Wondrous Punch makes you do.
Who knows what a drink there costs now (it’s been years since I’ve been back) but when I was just out of school and still scuffling, it was hard to beat giant snifters full of…rum and flavor and whatever…for $6.50? The prices stayed fairly fixed most of the time I was in my twenties, when every place I lived was stumbling distance home from the Dragon.
By my thirties, I lived in Saint Paul, and that is not the kind of place anyone should drive away from. Now, in my forties, perhaps I would appreciate it more properly. Bill Lindeke and Andy Sturdevant waxed poetic about it a few years back and one of these times I’m back next, I’ll sidle up to the bar and get myself a Wondrous Punch (though I’m not sure what they use instead of Bacardi 151 these days as they don’t make that anymore).
Of course, now I have a wonderful rum collection at home, and a lot more knowledge in my head. It’s somewhat easy enough to find out how they describe the beverage on their menu, and this old Star Tribune piece gives a few more details:
Bacardi Dark, Bacardi Light, Bacardi 151, Myers's Rum, Red Dragon's juice mix (sweet and sour, pineapple juice and orange juice)
Now look, you’re an adult, and Bacardi makes some okay products, but you’re better than Bacardi Dark and Bacardi Light if you’ve got it. And as I noted, they stopped making Bacardi 151 a few years back (though you can still find it in some stores :eyes:) so Lemon Hart 151, my standby, gets the call. You could leave the Myers’s in actually, that’s perfectly fine for what it does. As for the Red Dragon’s Juice mix, that’s a bit of guess work too. Also, this Chronicle piece strangely omits grenadine, which is clearly in it. The best recipe online was in Citypages, but we cannot have nice things and that is gone now. After a bit of tinkering, here is what I settled on. This will come out slightly darker than one from The Red Dragon if for no reason other than the use of slightly darker rums, and it will taste better because, well, I use better ingredients, but it will still do what a Wondrous Punch is supposed to do quite effectively:
1 oz Ron Del Barrilito
1 oz Plantation 3 Star
1 oz Plantation Dark
1 oz Lemon Hart 151
.5 oz lime
.5 oz lemon
.5 oz simple (1:1)
.75 oz orange
.75 oz pineapple
.25 oz grenadine
Take that all and put it in your mixing tin. Grab some ice and shake as much as you like (a little extra dilution ain’t the end of the world here). Strain into a snifter or other sufficiently large glass (you want something 20 ounces or larger) and put as much ice as you can in that glass. You will need it all. Top with a cocktail cherry.
Congratulations you are about to get wasted. Just don’t go wandering, you hear me?
This is Trader Jane’s, a periodic newsletter about drinks (mostly tiki) and other fun writing. Follow me on Substack for something every week or two (if we are being honest), and follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more timely updates on my beverages (and for lots of other things of course!)
And, as with any good drink, feel free to share (responsibly, of course)