A rum bomb in a tall glass: funky Jamaican, mellow aged and rich Demerara rums stacked beneath sharp lime, spiced falernum, grapefruit and cinnamon, with a spoon of grenadine for colour and a dash of bitters for backbone, all blended with crushed ice into a frosty slush. Its fruit-forward charm hides a brutal proof, while a few drops of anise and a sprig of mint lift the nose so the whole thing drinks far lighter than it is.
Garnish: Mint Sprig
Blended · Tall tumbler · Crushed
add
Add all ingredients — the three rums, lime juice, falernum, grapefruit juice, cinnamon syrup, grenadine, Angostura bitters, and Pernod — to an electric blender.
blend
Add about 170 g (roughly 6 oz) of cracked ice and pulse-blend for a few seconds until just combined and frothy — do not over-blend.
build
Pour unstrained into a tall tumbler glass, served on the rocks.
garnish
Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
Donn Beach — born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt — first mixed the Zombie in late 1934 at Don the Beachcomber, his Hollywood restaurant, and it hit so hard that he capped each guest at two. The drink found a far wider audience at the 1939 New York World's Fair, where Monte Proser poured a version Beach had never authorised. Beach kept the real formula hidden behind coded, numbered bottles for decades, and the build poured today, listed by the IBA, is a reconstruction pieced together once that code was finally cracked.