It’s Mixology Monday time again, our favorite post of the month. This month’s theme is courtesy of JFL over at Rated R Cocktails, one of our favorite tiki themed blogs. The theme this month is Spoooooooky cocktails. JFL was very liberal in his definition of spooky; garnish, appearance, tribute to a horror icon, you name it. Read on to find out what we came up with.

We started off thinking of doing something Dia del Muerto-inspired using mezcal. But then we thought of our host, and doing something tiki also seemed like a fun idea. But could we munge them together? We haven’t seen many mezcal-based tiki drinks, so that seemed like a good challenge. We pulled out the mezcal and some typical tiki ingredients and started experimenting. We ended up with something that looked pretty gory and tasted delicious – theme achieved! A libation appropriate to toasting fallen comrades. But why stop there? Nothing wrong with going with both tiki bowl and Halloween bonfire tradition and setting that shit on fire to boot. So we did 🙂

Funeral Pyre

• 2 oz mezcal (We used the Del Maguey Vida for its fruitier notes)
• 1/2 oz gold rum
• 1 1/2 oz pineapple juice
• 3/4 oz grenadine
• 3/4 oz lime juice
• 1 dash lemon bitters
• 1/4 oz 151 rum

Shake first 6 ingredients with ice. Strain into a glass. Float 151 rum on top. Set. On. Fire! Cheers. (Blow out the fire first, just FYI)

• Nose: Lime, hay, vegetal agave notes. Hints of smokey mesquite, pomegranate, caramel.
• Palate: Sweet lime, pineapple, and pomegranate to start. Mid-palate is smokey vegetal and mineral flavors with a rich sweet rum base. More pomegranate on the finish with dry lemon peel and pith, and a lime bite at the very end. Aftertaste is smokey and faintly sweet, like burnt toffee.

There you have it, a mezcal tiki drink, and a yummy one at that. We weren’t sure if the mezcal would work, but it did (or at least we like it :)). Thanks to JFL for hosting this month, and for a fun (and seasonally appropriate!) theme. Also, thanks as always to our torch bearer Fred Yarm. Until next week, cheers!