Todd Maul is bar director and partner at Cafe ArtScience in Cambridge, MA.
In the summer and year-round, my favorite kind of cocktails are Tiki drinks. And when it’s hot out, my go-to cocktail is a clarified lime and rhum agricole Daiquiri that we make at Café ArtScience.
We use clarified lime juice that is spun through a centrifuge, along with house-made burnt cinnamon simple syrup and the rhum. It’s served on minus 40 degree ice to ensure that it melts slowly and maintains its flavor when the temperatures are high.
That’s my favorite, but it’s a little tricky to make if you don’t have a centrifuge behind your bar like we do.
If you wanted to make a really great Tiki cocktail, I would recommend our version of a Singapore Sling, which is a twist on the original early 1900s version but with tart cherry juice.
I love this one because it’s really refreshing. And when you shake it like crazy, the pineapple creates this beautiful foam at the top of the glass, so it’s both cooling and esthetically pleasing.
Singapore Sling
1 ½ oz. Boodles gin
½ oz. Freshly squeezed lime juice
½ oz. Cherry Heering
¼ oz. Benedictine liqueur
¼ oz. Triple sec
¹⁄3 oz. Grenadine
2 dashes Bitters
4 oz. Pineapple juice
1 Bottle of tart cherry juice concentrate (for ice)
Make the cherry ice the night prior to serving: Pour tart cherry juice in the bottom half of an ice cube tray and let freeze. Once completely frozen, top the other half with water and freeze again to create a banded, layered look.
Combine all ingredients and shake with ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain and pour over two stacked tart cherry ice cubes and two regular white ice cubes.
The cherry juice in question is from Stanton Orchards in Michigan. Available at Whole Foods. Contact Todd Stanton and tell him the guys from Cafe ArtScience sent ya….