The Cocktail Scientist
T H E Z O M B I E
The Zombie
INTRODUCTION
The Zombie is a cultural phenomenon and well-known potent cocktail created by Tiki maestro, Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, who was also known as “Don Beach or “Don The Beachcomber.” A work of mixological art, the Zombie is a rum drink that leverages a very high alcoholic beverage content with multiple flavorful ingredients to achieve cocktail superiority. While some modern critics have considered the Zombie an improvisation of Planter’s Punch, another iconic rum cocktail which is deeply rooted in the evolution of Rum Punch, the Zombie’s complex and brilliant use of three considerably different rums is innovative and a far cry from a variation. Beloved and found on cocktail menus across the world, the Zombie is far from dead, which its name might suggest, and has only grown in Tiki stardom throughout the years.
MATERIALS & METHODS
Don The Beachcomber Zombie, circa 1934 Recipe (1)
- Gold Puerto Rican Rum - 1.5 oz (45 mL)
- Aged Jamaican Rum – 1.5 oz (45 mL)
- Lemon Hart 151-Proof Demerara Rum – 1.0 oz (30 mL)
- Fresh Lime Juice – 0.75 oz (22.5 mL)
- Don’s Mix* – 0.5 oz (15 mL)
- Falernum – 0.5 oz (15 mL)
- Pernod - 1/8 teaspoon (6 drops)
- Grenadine – 1 teaspoon
- Angostura Bitters – dash
- Crushed ice – ¾ cup (6 oz)
Directions:
- Put all ingredients in a blender.
- Blend at high speed for no more than 5 seconds.
- Pour into a tall cocktail glass.
- Add ice cubes to fill.
- Garnish with mint sprig.
*Don’s Mix: 2 parts white grapefruit juice to 1-part Don’s Spices #4**
** Don’s Spices #4: Cinnamon Syrup
DISCUSSION
Historical Origin
Before coining himself “Don Beach” or “Don The Beachcomber,” Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt traveled the globe at a young age. Having spent significant time in the Caribbean and the South Pacific his travels influenced him to eventually open a small cocktail bar in Hollywood, California. Don’s first cocktail bar has been recognized as the very first Tiki bar, and was called, “Don the Beachcomber.” The establishment, dressed in Polynesian flare and the décor, included delicious Cantonese dishes and mysterious cocktails that Don himself created. Don called these cocktails “Rhum Rhapsodies” and soon word began spreading throughout Hollywood of their exoticness. It was not long until Hollywood’s starlets like Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, and Vivien Leigh began frequenting his bar. The ensuing instant popularity led to many attempts to recreate his recipes. Thus, Don created a special code to disguise the ingredients and recipes, and Don carried many of these secrets to his grave in 1989 when he passed at the age of 82.
However, it was one cocktail in Don’s Rum Rhapsodies during his time in Hollywood that really put him on the map. That cocktail was the Zombie. A multi-blended heavy-handed rum cocktail with immense flavor, the Zombie became instant cocktail lore as Don said he created the cocktail to help a hung-over customer get through a business meeting. The customer having returned a few days later said that the drink was so powerful that he felt like a zombie, like a member of the walking dead. Thus, Don said moving forward patrons were only to be allowed two Zombies a night at the most because of the drink’s potency.
Flavor Profile
Don The Beachcomber’s Zombie cocktail recipe utilizes nine key ingredients, excluding the crushed ice. Included however, is a blend of three distinct rums which add to the significant strength of the cocktail.
Rum
The first rum utilized in the Zombie cocktail recipe is a gold Puerto Rican rum. Golden rums can draw their color from two separate methods. The first method involves the rum being aged in wooden (usually White American Oak) barrels. Golden rums aged in these barrels will have a more significant flavor than clear/silver rums. The purpose of barrel aging, however, is not just to add oak flavor to the rum, but to increase acidity and ester formation. This method arouses a greater flavor profile. Typically, the longer the rum is barrel aged the more transformation will occur. The second method to create a golden color is to simply add caramel. A golden rum that has been infused with caramel will have a significantly less suite of esters than a barrel aged rum, and thus have a less dominant flavor profile.
The second rum ingredient that is involved when creating the Zombie cocktail is an aged Jamaican rum. Jamaican rums typically are pot-stilled, and thus are high-congener and full-bodied, compared to Puerto Rican rums which tend to be column distilled, thus lighter and with a more neutral flavor than their Jamaican counterpart. Jamaican rums have often been described as “funky”, which is a term that has been associated to its over-ripe nature and powerful ester notes.
The final rum ingredient that is associated with the Zombie cocktail is a 151-proof Demerara Rum. Lemon Hart 151-proof Demerara Rum, also called LH151, is a caramel-colored, aged, over-proof rum that has hints of raw brown sugar, dried fruits, burnt caramel, exotic spices, vanilla and baked apples (2). LH151 is a dark, sweet, and intense brown rum distilled from fermented molasses in Guyana and contains 75.5% alcohol by volume.
Additional Ingredients
Don Beach’s use of flavorful ingredients like lime juice, Don’s Mix, Falernum, Pernod, grenadine, and angostura bitters was strategic. Not only do all these ingredients add distinct esters, each with its own smell and flavor, but their complexity together was intentional. Don Beach did not want his cocktail recipes to be easily duplicated and were indeed complex:
- Lime juice, a citrus juice with a pH of 2.8 is an acid which adds tartness to the cocktail and contains nearly twice as much Citric acid than a grapefruit.
- Don’s Mix, is a blend of white grapefruit juice (pH 2.9- 3.3) and essentially cinnamon syrup, a thick viscous liquid made from crushed cinnamon which gets its viscosity from the multiple hydrogen bonds between the dissolved sugar (1).
- Falernum, which is a syrup liqueur from the Caribbean with an alcohol by volume of 18%, contains aromatic flavors of almond, ginger, and lime.
- Pernod is an anise flavored liqueur from France possessing an aromatic taste that resembles the taste of black licorice.
- Grenadine is utilized as a sweetening agent in the Zombie cocktail. The ingredient originated from the French word grenade which means pomegranate, with pomme meaning apple and granate derived from the Italian word for seeds (3).
- Angostura Bitters, originally designed for medicinal purpose to alleviate stomach ailments, is made from herbs and spices and is made by the House of Angostura in Trinidad and Tobago.
NUTRITION
The Zombie cocktail is a high caloric drink with a relatively high sugar content. However, the use of three bold distinct rums tempers the intentional use of sweetening ingredients and makes it a delicious and memorable cocktail. One concern that is obvious with the Zombie cocktail is the high alcohol by volume content which can lead to an enhanced Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). BAC is most commonly used as a metric of alcohol intoxication for legal or medical purposes, and depending on the body weight of an individual, behavior can range from euphoria to stupor (4).
NUTRITION FACTS
(Amount Per 1 Fl oz in a 12 Fl oz Cocktail)
Calories: 37.93
Total Fat: 0.03 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Potassium: 3.61 mg
Sodium: 2.90 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 1.47 g
Dietary Fiber: 0 g
Sugar: 2.10 g
CONCLUSION
Don Beach not only pioneered the popular Tiki movement that we know today but created one of the most legendary cocktails in rum cocktail history when he invented the Zombie. An innovative cocktail developed by an avant-garde mixologist, the Zombie is an intoxicating multiple high congener rum cocktail loaded with flavorful aromatic esters. Today, the Zombie is more than a potent cocktail, it is a physical manifestation of the vision that Don Beach had posted in his bar long ago,” If you can’t get to paradise, I’ll bring it to you!” And thanks to the Zombie cocktail you can now drink paradise.
REFERENCES
- Berry, J. (2017). Beachbum Berry’s Potions of the Caribbean. NY: Cocktail Kingdom.
- Lemon Hart. (2019). LH151. Retrieved from: https://www.lemonhartrum.com/rum-always/#product-section
- Grenadine. (2019). Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadine
- What is BAC? (2019). Stanford University. Retrieved from: https://alcohol.stanford.edu/alcohol-drug-info/buzz-buzz/what-bac
