"She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell..."
Steely Dan, why you shouldn't joke, and what you do with a rum collection that keeps growing
So about a week ago, I idly joked on Twitter (never idly joke on Twitter):
What’s the lesson here? Never idly joke on Twitter, for one. But more to the point, I guess there is an audience for my specific combination of music and drinks here. You, the public, called my bluff, and at that point I had not choice but to oblige.
I have long been a Steely Dan fan. It was not cool to like Steely Dan in high school, but as a child of parents who raised me on classic rock, Steely Dan was as much a part of life as anything else. “My Old School” is about Bard College, but any song that namechecks Annandale when you go to high school in Alexandria will resonate. I have my mom’s copy of Steely Dan’s Greatest Hits on vinyl. My best friend in high school was also a huge Steely Dan fan. Do I like obtuse and hyper-literate media because of this, or have I always just been attracted to this kind of stuff? We will never know.
More recently, as we all wend our way through the weird hellscape that is 2020, I’ve taken up home bartending much more seriously. Whereas I used to be able to get my fix with a good night on the town or even at a friend’s place, we are all left to our own devices here in this pandemic. And well, I did what anyone would do, which is apparently to build a home bar. You can see a couple of the bottles of rum that kicked this off 7 months ago
Well, here we are 7 months later, and I have a rum shelf. It’s a whole to-do really. I did a #31DaysOfTiki thing in August. It’s…a lot. I’ll get more into the whys and wherefores another time, mechanics, bottles, recommendations, all that, but for now, let’s go back to the subject at hand: Steely Dan-inspired tiki drinks
So now that the internet had so ably called my bluff, I had to think a bit more about what I was doing here. And while there are some requests that I will have to ponder, the idea had come to me while listening to Haitian Divorce, both one of the most direct Steely Dan songs and a song that actually references a drink. “She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell…” as they say. (By the by, if you don’t know what a Haitian divorce is, it’s a one-party divorce, and the history of it sounds wild…apparently people would fly there and get divorces, and this is something that some states would accept? The 70s man…)
But it would be boring to just do a Zombie, that’s not sly enough to honor Steely Dan or the history of tiki. It’s all about winks and nods and building on the past. Both are great at borrowing from the past and present to create their own uniqueness. So what about a Zombie built with Haitian rum? Now we’re talking.
My go-to tiki books at the moment are Minimalist Tiki (hat tip to James for the suggestion) and Smuggler’s Cove’s excellent tome. For whatever reason, I prefer something I can thumb through while I’m thinking about these drinks. Anyway, the Zombie is a classic, and they both have similar versions based on the original Don the Beachcomber formula, though since I don’t have Herbsaint sitting around, so I’ll hue more to the Minimalist Tiki take in this case:
1 dash Angostura bitters
6 drops absinthe (St. George, who are you kidding?)
1 tsp grenadine (someday, I’ll make some, but why when Small Hand Foods is so good?)
.75 oz lime juice
.25 oz grapefruit juice
.25 oz cinnamon syrup (this is homemade, we’ll talk about that another time)
.5 oz falernum (also homemade, this is Ken’s fault, but John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum is always a good call)
Now here is where things get interesting. Normally I’d be reaching for the Lemon Hart 151, Ron del Barrilito 2 Star, and Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum (3 bottles to build your home tiki bar around, but again, another time), but none of them are Haitian.
Haiti has a rich rum history, but finding Haitian rums in the states is a bit more complicated. Not impossible (Haiti ain’t sanctioned), but it’s just not something you see in stock nearly as much as more ubiquitous standards like Guyanese, Puerto Rican, or Jamaican rums as I would normally use in a Zombie. But Haiti does have some fun and funky stuff going on.
It is impossible to talk about Haitian rum and not talk about Rhum Barbancourt, the gold standard of Haitian rum and what you are most likely to find at your discerning local liquor stores. I already had a bottle of Barbancourt 5 Star sitting around, but that was it. So I turned to my chief supplier of rums locally, K & L Wines, to see what else they had in stock (an aside on K & L: I am annoyed that you can only pick up with a car, but this is balanced out by the fact their delivery charge is ridiculously cheap on top of the fact that they just have the best prices on things quite regularly. I respect their quite strict COVID safety, but I’d love to bike down there and grab a couple bottles too).
K & L did not let me down. In addition to the Barbancourt 15 year, they also have a selection of Clairin, which is having its moment apparently. What is rum? That’s an interesting ontological question for another time, but suffice to say, rum is a malleable spirit (as opposed to many which have much stricter definitions). But it has the right kind of funk that I’m looking for. You need something that will stand up on its own in a drink like a Zombie, and this is no time for timid rum. I chose the Clairin Sajous, which has some nice fruity notes and packs a punch at 108.6 proof.
So…here’s the rest:
1 oz Barbancourt 15 Year
1.5 oz Barbancourt 5 Star
1.5 oz Clairin Sajous
Put that all in your mixing tin, fill it with ice, and shake to your heart’s content (honestly a little extra dilution is not gonna kill a Zombie). Find your most coconut-like of glasses (thank you to Brian for these ridiculous but wonderful ones), and fill with crushed ice.
Congratulations, this is your Haitian Divorce.
So…how did it work? It’s a little more floral than a Zombie to be honest, and not actually quite as strong (no 151 helps), so it goes down a little easier, but it’s by no means lightweight. But it makes for a nice salute to the wonderful flavors of Clairin and Barbancourt. Try it yourself! Let me know what you think. I would love to see your photos if you make this yourself.
As for what’s next? Well, I’ll have to ponder. We’ll work our way back to Steely Dan inspired beverages, but that’s not all that is in store. I may walk through a few of my original creations next. I may get into how joking about opening a tiki bar now really has me actually wanting to do it. Who knows? This is space to have fun, after all, and I hope you are having fun too.
This is Trader Jane’s, a periodic newsletter about drinks (mostly tiki) and other fun writing. Follow me on Substack for something once or twice a week (that’s the goal for now at least), 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)