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Zombie

151-proof Demerara rum, Jamaican rum, gold rum, lime juice, Don’s Mix, falernum, grenadine, Pernod and Angostura Bitters

The Zombie (c. 1934) is the most famous drink by Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt (Donn Beach), and was essential to establishing and popularizing the mystique of the “exotic restaurant” that Beach more or less invented with his Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood. The recipe was secret. Donn Beach actually had several significantly different Zombie formulations over the years, but the original launched his legacy. Despite endless attempts by competitors at reverse-engineering the drink, the original Zombie recipe remained a lost drink until historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry was able to reconstruct it from the 1937 notebook of a Don the Beachcomber waiter.

For the Zombie recipe, and additional background, please see this article by Beachbum Berry.

Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, p. 802; barware icons courtesy of Haus Alpenz