The Spirits #58: The Halekulani
~ Storm Eunice ~ Overproof ~ I'll Weave a Lei of Stars ~ Handwashing ~
~ THE HALEKULANI ~
45ml bourbon
15ml demerara sugar syrup (2:1)
5ml grenadine
15ml lemon juice
15ml orange juice
15ml pineapple juice
Dash Angostura bitters
Place all of the ingredients in your shaker. Fill halfway with ice. Shake until it hurts. Now fine-strain into a cold, cold glass. You can serve this one up (in a stemmed glass) or down (over fresh cubed ice). But you should take care to garnish it in suitably tropical style: pineapple, gardenias, umbrellas, etc.
Some Halekulani notes:
1) The recipe comes courtesy of Shannon Mustipher’s excellent book Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails, which I got for Christmas. Shannon counsels the use of overproof Bourbon (like, 55%+ ABV). However, you might simply wish to add more bourbon - or try rye, which tends to be a bit punchier.
2) You don’t have to make Demerara syrup - regular sugar syrup would do - but I’d recommend it. The treacly depth of flavour really gives this another dimension. In fact, I was more than usually diligent in following the recipe here, even going so far as to buy my fruits from the posh new organic grocers down the road, and I didn’t regret it, no not at all.
ALOHA! So happy you dropped by! Windy out, huh?
🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋Instructions on sugar syrup, ice, grenadine etc are here.
🧑🏫 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
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THE Halekulani was the house cocktail of the House Without a Key bar at the Halekulani (above), one of the oldest hotels in Hawaii. The drink dates back to the 1930s and, while it’s usually grouped together with such ‘Tiki’ drinks as the Zombie and the Mai Tai, it has a slightly different lineage. It’s based on bourbon, not rum for a start. And it is genuinely from a Polynesian island - as opposed to a Californian theme bar pretending to be a Polynesian island.
I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more about it other than it is delicious and you should make it: Storm Eunice has meant I have had to spend more of today playing Duplo with my baby than I’d anticipated, so I am not as well-versed on the history of Hawaiian tourism, American colonialism, ukelele music, the White Lotus and pineapple cultivation as I would like to be. Doubtless I’ll return to Mustipher’s book soon too, as it’s great. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make it to Waikiki one day.
In the meantime, suffice to say that bourbon and pineapple is a wonderful combination, just the thing for a windy February. That tiny pearl of grenadine provides the necessary alchemy to fuse the thing together, I think you’ll find. And please enjoy the playlist of vintage Hawaiian music below. I have been listening to this music all week and it really has made me feel wonderfully serene. I hadn’t quite realised until I began to compile it how much that carefree mid-American mall sound owes to vintage Hawaiian music. I wonder how I’d feel about that were it my culture that had been appropriated and kitschified in that way? There is a whole lot bubbling under those placid surfaces.
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Fun TV fact: the nightmare Nietzsche-reading teenage girls in White Lotus were apparently loosely based on the actor/podcaster Dasha Nekrasova, who played Comfrey (Kendall’s PR/Greg’s love interest) in the recent series of Succession.
PLAYLIST
I make no claim to any great depth of knowledge on the Golden Age of Hawaiian music. Only that it’s delightful to listen to.
THIS PLAYLIST UPDATES AUTOMATICALLY EACH WEEK. The idea is, you download it and return to it each week in your Spotify. If there was an old song you’d like to hear again, you’ll find it RIGHT HERE in the ongoing archive of 2021 playlists.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
Rivka Galken on the anti-vaxx movement. The piece opens with an eye-opening account of Dr Semelweis, the 19th century Hungarian obstetrician who discovered the vital importance of handwashing in preventing disease and death - only no one really believed him. It prompted us to book tickets to see the wondeful Mark Rylance play Semelweis at the Bristol Old Vic - do try and see the production should it come to a theatre near you. (LRB)
Nikolai Gumilev’s poem The Giraffe. (AGNI)
Ted Gioia on how old music is killing new music. (The Atlantic… though I read this on his Substack first)
Carrie Battan on Beach House, a band I like a lot (New Yorker)
And, American readers, I wrote a slightly mad piece in this month’s Travel + Leisure about hiking chic, not yet online, but (Travel + Leisure)
SHOPPING LIST
.White grapes, gin, Campari, lemon, sugar syrup.
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