The Cocktail Scientist
The Lucky Beach Charm
INTRODUCTION
The Lucky Beach Charm cocktail is a delicious craft rum cocktail that is easily recognizable by its brilliant bright green color. With its creative and fanciful name, the cocktail may very well be the lucky rabbit’s foot, Irish Shamrock, or the wishbone of the cocktail world. However, the name of the cocktail, The Lucky Beach Charm, was inspired by a sea cottage with a similar name and created by yours truly. And with more alcohol by volume than a Piña Colada, but less than a Hurricane, the Lucky Beach Charm may just have the consumer feeling great and lucky after just one cocktail.
Lucky Beach Charm
Test tubes of Cocktail Scientist 2
MATERIALS & METHODS
Ingredients:
- Light Rum – 2 oz (60 mL)
- Midori Liqueur – 1 oz (30 mL)
- Peach Schnapps – 0.5 oz (15 mL)
- Cream of Coconut – 0.5 oz (15 mL)
- Pineapple Juice – 4.0 oz (120 mL)
- Garnish: Lime Wedge
Directions:
- First, add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
- Next, shake vigorously for 10 – 15 seconds.
- After shaking the cocktail, double strain slowly into a cocktail glass of your choosing filled with crushed ice.
- Finally, garnish with a lime wedge. Enjoy and cheers to luck!
DISCUSSION
Historical Origin
Throughout history, people have been engaged with superstition and luck. The concept of a lucky charm is the output from this type of thought and behavior and the belief that an object, action, or circumstance that is not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome (1). Whether lucky can be manipulated or harnessed is where the lucky charm really comes into play, but there are countless examples of good luck when a lucky charm was not involved. For example, when French chemist, Eduard Benedictus, dropped a glass flask coated with plastic cellulose nitrate around it, and it did not shatter, the safety glass windshield was born. Another example occurred when Sir Alexander Fleming who was working on the influenza virus in 1928 accidentally left his cultures out while he went on a two-week vacation and they inherently became mold contaminated. When he came back, he noticed the bacteria in his cultures would not grow near the mold and thus penicillin was discovered. Yet, while most scientists dismiss luck and superstition as irrelevant fiction and creations of irrational thought, many people do believe in the concept of a lucky charm and attest their run of good luck to the charm that they keep close to them. Lucky charms are prevalent in most world cultures and have been for eons (2). Some unusual examples of individuals carrying lucky charms include Michael Jordan who wore an extra pair of shorts from his college, the University of North Carolina, under his Bulls uniform for good luck in every game and actor, Benicio del Toro, who wears a ring with a wooden core so he can always knock-on-wood whenever needed (3).
Flavor Profile
Rum
An 80 proof (40 % alcohol by volume) low congener rum, a light rum, is used in the architecture of The Lucky Beach Charm because it allows the other ingredients that are added to the cocktail to express their phenotypic properties. Light rums of this type lack a suite of esters that would have impacted flavor, thus allowing the other ingredients to contribute to the flavor of the cocktail. Another advantage of the use of light rum is that it is already clear after it has been distilled and filtered to remove impurities. The transparent nature of light rum also allows the additional ingredients to contribute and impact the overall color of the cocktail. The additional ingredients which are added to the cocktail contain complex molecules, most having several multiple bonds that are conjugated, which appear as being colored (4).
Additional Ingredients
Midori Liqueur
Midori, which is the Japanese word for green, is a sweet, bright green-colored, melon-flavored liqueur made by Suntory. Shinjiro Torii, founder of Suntory, had a lifetime dream to create a colorful Western liqueur and Midori was developed. First released in 1964 under the name “Hermes Melon Liqueur”, but known today simply as “Midori”, the liqueur was exclusively made only in Japan until 1987 (5). It is the presence of Midori in The Lucky Beach Charm which contributes the most to the cocktail’s color and sweetness.
Peach Schnapps
The term Schnapps is German and originated as a waggish term for any strong drink in the country. However, in America, the term schnapps is meant to indicate a cordial. Peach Schnapps owes its legacy to Earl LaRoe, a flavor scientist for National Distillers, who was inspired by the peach flavor after cutting his peach trees one day in Florida. The company went to make the clear, naturally flavored peach cordial we know today (6).
Cream of Coconut
The addition of Cream of Coconut to The Lucky Beach Charm is intentional but not only for its flavorful coconut aromatic property. Cream of Coconut is a blended cream from the hearts of coconuts with the perfect proportion of cane sugar added. The result is processed coconut milk that is thick and heavily sweetened. Cream of Coconut provides a frothing texture to the cocktail after it is shaken in the cocktail shaker which makes the cocktail even more enjoyable.
Pineapple Juice
The use of a large volume of pineapple juice which constitutes 50% of the cocktail enhances the sharpness of the cocktail. Pineapple Juice is moderately sweet with natural sugars. More importantly though, pineapple juice has an acidity level ranging from pH 3-4. The more acidic the juice the more presence of hydrogen ions. The more hydrogen ions that are available, the greater the impact on the sour taste receptors in our mouths.
NUTRITION
The Lucky Beach Charm cocktail is a charming cocktail as its name suggests both in taste and appearance. Similar in calories to the Hurricane cocktail and sugar content of the Planters Punch cocktail, its flavor profile is more analogs to a melon flavored Piña Colada. With a total of 368 calories in the total 8 oz cocktail, it may be more appreciated on a hot summer day or after an hour-long outdoor activity. The cocktail ABV of 15.5 per Fl oz is rather strong for a cocktail as well, being just slightly below the Hurricane cocktail which is known for its strength and registers at 18.8 per Fl oz.
NUTRITION FACTS
(Amount Per 1 Fl oz in an 8.0 Fl oz Cocktail)
Calories: 46.0
Total Fat: 0.6 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 1.1 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 5.3 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.3 g
Sugar: 5.1 g
ABV: 15.5
CONCLUSION
Luck and superstition have been present over the course of recorded history, and so has the reliance on lucky charms. Wearing a lucky charm has been linked to beliefs ranging from adding protection, blocking failure, and increasing performance. Most scientists today believe that the thought of a lucky charm is irrational. However, if having a lucky charm does help one feel better, then drinking one called The Lucky Beach Charm will make one really feel better. I can attest to this. It’s a four-leaf clover, rabbit’s foot, horseshoe, ladybug, and rainbow all in one glass.
REFERENCES
- Damisch, L., Stoberock, B., Mussweiler, T. (2010). Keep Your Fingers Crossed! How Superstition Improves Performance. Association for Psychological Science 21(7) 1014-1020.
- Herbert, W. (2011). On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits. Crown Publishing.
- Ranker (2019). Celebrities that Carry Lucky Charms. Retrieved from: https://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-with-lucky-charms/celebrity-lists
- Ashenhurst, J. (2020). Conjugation And Color (+ How Bleach Works). Retrieved from: https://www.masterorganicchemistry.com/2016/09/08/conjugation_and_color/
- Midori. (2020). Discover Midori. Retrieved from: https://www.midori-world.com/product
- Goldfarb, A. (2018). How crude, sexed-up cocktails wound up defining a decade of drinking. New York Post. Retrieved from: https://nypost.com/2018/05/10/how-crude-sexed-up-cocktails-wound-up-defining-a-decade-of-drinking/
