MxMoVIII: Tahitian

It’s been a blisteringly busy few weeks. Not just the normal kind of busy, but the brain-boggling, overdrive kind of busy where you wake up thinking of all the things you need to do, then flail away at that list all day until finally giving in to exhaustion, and fall asleep while thinking of all the things you still need to do when you get up in the morning, just a few short hours away…

Times like that, there’s not much room for futzing around with cocktails. Sure, they’re around — they’d almost have to be — but it’s the simple, A + B = C, comfort-food kind of cocktails like good, potent Manhattans and simple, soothing Old Fashioneds, cocktails you don’t have to think about that much, and that don’t require much time to prepare.

But, it’s over (mostly). Deadlines have been met (or slightly fudged), and I can finally take a moment to breathe. But after such a long, frenzied streak, it’s tough to get your mind back into normal mode, and sometimes special tools are needed. That’s where our good friend the Grog Log comes in.

Jeff Berry‘s tome of tiki packs a lot of good juju in its less than 100 pages, and there are plenty of options available for snapping you out of the workaday world and into a short mental vacation to the islands. After an extended hunkering down, I clearly need something exceptional — something cold and soothing, yet with the stress-busting capabilities of a tactical nuclear weapon. That makes it time for a drink I’ve been contemplating for months: Berry’s own creation, the Tahitian.

Consider this drink for a moment: on its face, it’s a run-of-the-mill tiki drink, with a rum base, a pineapple and lime fruit quotient, a sweetening liqueur and a dash of Angostura to add a little mystery. But the Tahitian takes these common tiki qualities and amplifies them, matching the pineapple and lime with white creme de cacao — which lends a gentle touch of chocolate that comforts you as it positions you in your happy place — and then methodically bludgeoning your daily concerns away with a whopping four ounces of rum: two ounces of the lean, aromatic Rhum Barbancourt, one and one-half of lush amber Jamaican and another half of the crisp gold Puerto Rican. Served over ice and sipped through a straw, the Tahitian seems mighty friendly; by the end of the glass, you realize it’s perhaps too friendly, as your lips grow numb and your eyebrows start to feel funny.

Wait…..work?

Mission accomplished.

Tahitian (from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log)

• 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened pineapple juice
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce white creme de cacao
• 1/2 teaspoon simple syrup
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 2 ounces Rhum Barbancourt
• 1 1/2 ounces gold Jamaican rum (I used Appleton V/X)
• 1/2 ounce gold Puerto Rican rum (I used Bacardi 8 )

Shake with ice cubes, then pour into a collins glass. Garnish with pineapple wedge stuck to rim of glass; stick paper parasol into pineapple wedge.

The Tahitian comes to you as part of Mixology Monday VIII: Exotic, hosted by Meeta over at What’s For Lunch, Honey? If you haven’t already posted your entry — could anybody be running later than me? — be sure to get it up, and then check in over at Meeta’s place in a day or so for the wrap-up.