Episode 126

Minimalist Tiki

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Minimalist Tiki

Episode 126

What’s shakin, cocktail fans?

Welcome to episode 126 of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast!

Thanks for joining us for another terrific interview episode, where we carve away the layers of delicious fact and fiction in the spirits and cocktail world and then serve them with gravy and cranberry sauce.

That’s right, this is our Thanksgiving episode. And what happens on Thanksgiving? The whole damn family gets together. Somebody gets drunk and starts talking politics and about an hour in, everyone’s looking for an escape.

And in the cocktail world, nothing says escape like Tiki. Our guest this time around is rum wonk and cocktail author Matt Pietrek (@cocktailwonk / @rumwonk), who joined us to talk about his book, Minimalist Tiki, and a whole bunch of other interesting rum and tiki topics.

Some of the things we discuss with Matt Include:

How Matt tended a rum hobby while working as a software engineer, and then blew that spark of interest into a full-fledged career as a rum author, historian, and consultant.
Why intellectual honesty and a thirst for verification set great cocktail writing and scholarship apart from the merely good stuff.
What “minimalist tiki” means – because let’s face it, when you’re looking at a recipe that calls for 8 or more ingredients, there’s not a whole lot of minimalism going on.
Why the fates and fortunes of rum and tiki are so interconnected in the bar world.
How Matt used a quantitative approach to laying out the most important tiki ingredients to have at your home bar. (Total software engineer move, by the way…)
The four levels of improvisation in tiki
What it’s like to self-publish a book in the age of Amazon and big publisher dominance.
What to drink when discussing calculus with Sir Isaac Newton.
And much, much more.

Featured Cocktail – The Jet Pilot

This episode’s featured cocktail is the Jet Pilot. This is a classic Tiki drink that gets straight to business with three different types of rum, two types of citrus, two sweeteners, and two herbal components.

To make the Jet Pilot cocktail, you’ll need:

1 oz Aged Jamaican rum
¾ oz Gold Rum
¾ oz Overproof Demerara Rum
½ oz Grapefruit Juice
½ oz Lime Juice
½ oz Orgeat (which is a spiced almond syrup)
½ oz cinnamon syrup, which is exactly what it sounds like
1 dash of Angostura Bitters
¼-½ bar spoon of pernod or absinthe

A lot of recipes out there instruct you to add everything to a blender, blitz it for a few seconds, and then pour this over crushed ice in your favorite tiki glass. This cocktail has been mixed together in all sorts of ways over the years, so we think the important part is to get all these ingredients mixed together somehow and then stick the drink in your face.

Now, If you back up and look at this Jet Pilot formulation, let’s point out that it’s one of the more beautiful recipes in the tiki world in terms of symmetry. You’ve got your two different citrus juices balanced by two types of syrup and two herbal bitter components. And then you have a trinity of different rums that all pull in different directions on the flavor spectrum to achieve that complex, heady balance that truly is the essence of tiki.

And if you’re flying this thanksgiving, you’d better hope that your jet pilot isn’t drinking a Jet Pilot.

Show Notes

Matt Pietrek began his cocktail wonkery in 2007 with a modest home bar that soon grew out of control. He soon turned to writing about his passion, capitalizing on his skills of making complex topics accessible and fun. From the chemistry of fermentation to spirit regulations, from cocktail recipes to rum history, he casts a wide net over little known and overlooked topics. Penning works for books, magazines, and his CocktailWonk.com site, Pietrek has twice been a finalist for the Cocktail Spirited Awards writing categories. He also serves as the Vintage columnist for Bourbon Plus magazine.

Rum is a particular passion of Pietrek’s, and he is considered among the world’s foremost writers on the rum industry. He serves as the Community Envoy for the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers Association, aka WIRSPA, and advices several rum brands.

With his wife, Carrie, he recently published Minimalist Tiki: A Cocktail Wonk Look at Classic Libations and the Modern Tiki Vanguard, as well as a book about the history of rum during the British colonial era. He has presented at many prestigious conferences, including Bar Convent Berlin, Bar Convent Brooklyn, Tales of the Cocktail, UK RumFest, The Hukilau, California RumFest, and more.

Lightning Round

Favorite Cocktail

My stock answer would be a Mai Tai, but sometimes a well done Jet Pilot is also amazing.

If You Were a Cocktail Ingredient, What Would You Be?

Jamaican Rum. The particular hogo/funk flavors of Jamaican rum are amazing.

Cocktail with Anyone, Past or Present

I would love to go back and meet Isaac Newton. He was so pivotal to the world changing with his calculus and his theories. I would love to have a daiquiri with him and show him how the world has changed as a result.

The other answer is that I would love to go back and have a cocktail with Don Beach. And then maybe I’d go next door and have a real ‘44 Mai Tai with Victor Bergeron.

Influential Tiki/Rum Books

Anything by Jeff Berry
Smuggler’s Cove – Martin Cate
Rum Curious – Fred Minnick
Rum Yesterday and Today
Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails – Shannon Mustipher
The Lone Caner (Blog)

Advice for Aspiring Tiki Afficionados

For rum in particular, there’s a bunch of great bottles for $30-$40. It’s inexpensive enough to start exploring. You don’t have to spend $500 to get an amazing bottle. Also, trust your own nose and your own palate. Get in there and do it; don’t worry about it being perfect the first time

Some of the things we discuss with Matt Include:

How Matt tended a rum hobby while working as a software engineer, and then blew that spark of interest into a full-fledged career as a rum author, historian, and consultant.
Why intellectual honesty and a thirst for verification set great cocktail writing and scholarship apart from the merely good stuff.
What “minimalist tiki” means - because let’s face it, when you’re looking at a recipe that calls for 8 or more ingredients, there’s not a whole lot of minimalism going on.
Why the fates and fortunes of rum and tiki are so interconnected in the bar world.
How Matt used a quantitative approach to laying out the most important tiki ingredients to have at your home bar. (Total software engineer move, by the way…)
The four levels of improvisation in tiki
What it’s like to self-publish a book in the age of Amazon and big publisher dominance.
What to drink when discussing calculus with Sir Isaac Newton.
And much, much more.

And if you’re flying this thanksgiving, you’d better hope that your jet pilot isn’t drinking a Jet Pilot.

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Episode 126

Featured Cocktail – The Jet Pilot

Show Notes

Lightning Round

Favorite Cocktail

If You Were a Cocktail Ingredient, What Would You Be?

Cocktail with Anyone, Past or Present

Influential Tiki/Rum Books

Advice for Aspiring Tiki Afficionados

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