Nicolas Torres is the bar director at Lazy Bear in San Francisco.
I am always striving to create seasonally driven, original cocktails, but from time to time I like to honor the classics. The Good Drink Hinky Dink is our version of the Mai Tai. There is debate as to who created the drink, but being from the Bay Area, I side with Trader Vic being the founder. So the title of the cocktail comes from Trader Vic’s original location in the East Bay, which was first called Hinky Dink’s, and “Maita’i” is the Tahitian word for good.
Basically we took today’s standard build on a Mai Tai and treated it as a milk punch and clarified it. We make our orgeat in house with these awesome almonds grown at Kashiwase Farms in Winton, CA. Then the whole drink has a dark rum float that has been infused with some coffee. In a sense, it is a delicate version of a decadent drink.
Good Drink Hinky Dink
1 ½ oz. Cana Brava rum
¾ oz. Lime juice
½ oz. Orgeat
¼ oz. Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
1 ½ oz. Milk
¼ oz. Coffee-infused dark rum
Combine the first four ingredients and slowly pour into the milk. Let it sit and curdle for about 30 minutes, and then pour the batch through a fine strainer and let it sift through it own curds. Repeat until the mixture is perfectly clear and stable. Pour over ice and finish with the coffee-rum float.