The Zombie was created in 1934 by Donn Beach at Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood, California; this powerful punch was the first famous “tiki drink.” Even though the recipe was a trade secret and served only at his bar, it became a coast-to-coast media sensation when radio comedians, newspaper columnists, and editorial cartoonists made its potency the subject of innumerable gags and gossip items. “Beware, in your Hollywood visit,” as one columnist wrote, “never to have a Zombie … for you will never be the same.”
It didn’t hurt the buzz that Donn Beach’s bar was a hangout for movie stars, or that Beach refused to serve more than two Zombies per customer. Neither did it hurt that his “mender of broken dreams” was addictively rich, complex, and balanced. Inevitably, the Zombie’s glowing press coverage prompted rival bars to try reverse-engineering the drink, none more successfully or persistently than New York nightclub impresario Monte Proser (1904–1973), who unapologetically built an empire on it in the early 1940s. Hundreds of these bogus Zombie recipes were published over the past eighty years, but none even comes close to Beach’s. The original secret formula, which Beach took to his grave, was discovered by this writer in 2006 in the notebook of former Beachcomber’s headwaiter Richard Santiago.
Recipe: Combine 22.5 ml lime juice, 15 ml falernum, 45 ml each gold Puerto Rican rum and gold Jamaican rum, 30 ml 151-proof Lemon Hart demerara rum, 1 tsp grenadine, 6 drops Pernod, a dash of Angostura bitters, and 15 ml “Don’s Mix” (two parts grapefruit juice to one part cinnamon syrup) in an electric blender with 3/4 cup crushed ice, then blend at high speed for no more than five seconds. Pour into a tall glass, add ice to fill, and garnish with a mint sprig.
See also Beach, Donn; punch; and tiki.
Berry, Jeff. Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari. San Jose, CA: Club Tiki, 2007.
Sampas, Charles G. “N.Y.-Hollywood.” Lowell (MA) Sun, August 27, 1938.
By: Jeff Berry