Tiki Month – Pieces of Eight and Dr Funk served in Ice Tower

So…the tiki month is coming to an end – well i guess not for me since it´s tiki month all year here on this blog! Doug really has cranked out TONS of great drinks and info and i haven`t yet been able to read it all – heck i have a normal job too!!

But there´s lots of great knowledge, funny anecdotes, history and teachings and for our convenience and for this i say THANK YOU Doug! all the posts are listed with links if you just click on “Tiki Month 2012” at the upper top right on his blog, and there ya go!

So i guess this is going to be my last post for tiki month of february at least, and looking around to find an interesting drink to make i found the “Pieces of Eight” in Remixed which is one i haven´t made before. I like the idea of using eight pieces of grilled pineapple as garnish as showed in the book.

I also happen to feel like making the ice tower again and so i made one yesterday, it´s been kept in my freezer overnight – it´s for Dr Funk. Who is Dr Funk? well, it´s a drink that was made by a German doctor in Samoa…

The ice tower was something i first saw years ago in a picture of the drink “Dr Funk`s Son” and thought it was so cool i went and made a few different ice-towers and wrote a post about Dr Funk and Dr Funk´s Son.

Also just now during the tiki month over at the Pegu blog, my epic friend Doug also wrote about this drink in an excellent post with no less than three versions of the drink.

Dr Funk was invented by a German doctor on Samoa as a cure for the world renown author Robert Louis Stevenson – sometimes in the beginning of the 20th century and if you haven´t read his book “Mystic Isles of the South Seas” and is interested in things Polynesia i think you should. It`s a great piece of history. Well – making those drinks was long ago and i haven`t made any new ice-tower until now…gonna be fun to make the Dr Funk again – also it´s a great drink containing a little bit of absinthe for your well-being.

As for the other drink “Pieces of Eight” – it was created at the Pieces of Eight restaurant in Marina Del Rey, California in cirka 1962. Seems llike the restaurant closed down sometimes in the 70s. It´s a light drink with just 1.5 oz of light Puerto Rican rum – and i`m not that much into light drinks….so i wanna pimp it up a bit – but if you prefer a lower alcohol content just stick to the original recipe which calls for 1.5 oz light Puerto Rican rum.

Moreover you don´t have to go and grill eight pieces of pineapple for garnish to do this drink, it´s just me wanna do it cuz i love those little things…

But now all this talk about grilled pineapple and rum has made me thirsty so i better get going, here are the recipes:

PIECES OF EIGHT

0.5 oz fresh lime juice

1.5 oz fresh lemon juice

1.5 oz passionfruit syrup

1.5 oz light Puerto Rican rum

1 oz Smith & Cross (extra)

4 oz ( 0.5 cup) crushed ice

Put it all in a blender and blend at high speed for 5 sec and pour unstrained into a tall glass or specialty glass and add more crushed ice to fill.

With the addition of Smith & Cross the drink was – to my taste – very nice!

DR FUNK ( 1948 trader Vic`s recipe)

2 1/2 oz. Dark Jamaican Rum

2 1/2 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

1/2 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

1 1/2 oz. Club Soda

1/2 oz. Grenadine

1/4 oz. Absinthe

Shake all ingredients except club soda in a cocktail shaker with 1 cup of crushed ice. Pour into Fu Manchu mug or 12 oz. chimney glass – or ice tower… Top with soda and more crushed ice to fill

If you like the taste of absinthe you´ll like this drink! the taste of anise is distinctive but not overpowering.

HOW TO MAKE THE ICE TOWER

It´s easy – Just place the glass inside a larger plastic bucket-like cup or “glass” –  a bit bigger than the drinking glass filling the space in between with first crushed ice and then water and then into the freezer overnight.

IMPORTANT – After you added the crushed ice in the space between the glasses make sure to add a stone or something to hold it down when you pour in the water.

When you take it out hold it under warm water to get the ice tower to get loose from the plastic bucket, it doesn´t take more than a minute or two.

UPDATE – One more thing – in the comments i got the question if the ice tower melts fast and wet the table….well, i say – A couple of napkins is useful…and not to drink too slowly either but since this drink (or another) you make in it tastes so good that shouldn`t be a problem…just don´t make zombies.…

Aloha and Okole maluna!