The Bahama Mama , which, naturally, originated in the Bahamas, is an example of a drink that, though it gained popularity in the United States in the 1970s after the heyday of the tiki bar was over, nicely fits the definition of an exotic cocktail. Exotic cocktails, as defined by tiki godfather Donn Beach, are, at their heart, riffs on the traditional Planter’s Punch: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of week, and often “a bit of spice to make it nice.” The British Colonial Hotel in Nassau was serving a Bahama Mama in 1960, as was the Beverly Hills Trader Vic’s in 1961 (served in its own wooden mug), but neither formula was recorded, and their relation to each other and to subsequent iterations of the drink is not known. See Trader Vic’s. Recipes for the Bahama Mama begin to appear in print in the United States in the early 1970s, and in the middle of the decade ads from the Bahamas Tourist Board began calling for you to “Drink a Goombay Smash or a Bahama Mama” (the name probably comes from Wolfe Gilbert and Charles Lofthouse’s long-lived 1932 novelty hit song of the same name, with which tourists landing in Nassau were routinely greeted). There appears to be no definitive recipe for the Bahama Mama, but most recipes include lemon or lime, giving the drink the requisite sour, and feature a blend of rums as the strong component (also following in the tradition of Donn Beach and his fellow legendary tiki barman Trader Vic), and many use sugar, grenadine, or a coffee, coconut, or orange liqueur for the sweet, pineapple and/or orange juice as the weak, and bitters for the spice.
However, when made poorly, the Bahama Mama can and should be lumped in with the sweet and slushy “boat drinks” of the 1970s like the Mudslide or Lava Flow, which don’t have enough of a sour component to balance out their sweet core. And, like many of its exotic cocktail brethren, by the mid-late 1980s you see variants of the Bahama Mama that have completely devolved from their Planters Punch–style origins, introducing nontraditional ingredients like pink lemonade, tequila, and Southern Comfort.
See also Beach, Donn, and Bergeron, Victor “Trader Vic”.
Recipe: Shake well with ice: 15 ml dark rum, 15 ml coconut liqueur, 7 ml coffee liqueur, 15 ml fresh lemon juice, and 120 ml pineapple juice; strain into ice-filled Collins glass, float 7 ml 151-proof rum on top, and garnish with maraschino cherry.
Berry, Jeff. Beachbum Berry’s Potions of the Caribbean: 500 Years of Tropical Drinks and the People behind Them. New York: Cocktail Kingdom, 2014.
“Holiday Spirits.” Tampa Times, December 23, 1960, 8.
Katz, Betty. “Press Previews Resort Wear to Calypso Beat,” Van Nuys (CA) Valley News, April 20, 1961, C26–27.
Pogash, Jeffrey, and Rick Rogers, eds. Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide: 75th Anniversary Ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2012.
By: Martin Cate