hot zombie

2 oz Gold Puerto Rican Rum (Don Q Añejo)
1 oz Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup (BG Reynolds)
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1 tsp Brown Sugar
1 small chip Butter
4 oz Boiling Hot Water

Build in an 8 oz mug and stir.

Two Sundays ago, I decided to make a drink I spotted while searching for my Mixology Monday Tiki submission in Jeff Berry's Sippin' Safari. The drink that caught my eye was a hot version of the Zombie published in a 1941 Ron Rico Rum Company recipe book. With the passion fruit syrup, lime and pineapple juices, and brown sugar, Berry pointed out that the recipe shares a resemblance to Louis Spievak's Zombie that was published a few years later in Barbeque Chef from 1950. While Spievak claimed that this was recipe was given to him by Donn Beach, it diverges from Beach's Zombie and aesthetic. So perhaps Spievak modified the Hot Zombie himself into his 1950 recipe.
The Hot Zombie greeted the nose with a steamy pineapple aroma at first that gained passion fruit notes later as it cooled. The brown sugar flavor mingled with the lime and passion fruit ones on the sip, and the rum and pineapple filled the swallow. While there was no spice, absinthe, or bitters in the drink, nutmeg or clove would definitely not be out of place here. Overall, the Hot Zombie was an unusual concept but one that worked in the same way that Deep Ellum's Hot Old Fashioned did.
I also did the Hot Zombie at Loyal Nine when a cold front demolished our hot buttered rum batter stocks right before Valentine's Day 2016. For the holiday drink menu, I had two count of the Hot Buttered Rum but offered for the same price the Hot Zombie. I followed the recipe as above except that I utilized Old Monk Rum instead of Puerto Rican rum and garnished with a floated lime wheel studded with 3 cloves. The garnish donated a Frankenstein monster sort of effect in my mind.