lili'uokalani's downfall

1 1/2 oz Rhum Agricole Blanc (Rhum Clement Premiere Canne)
1/2 oz Mezcal (Fidencio Espadin Joven)
2 oz Diced Pineapple (sub 1 1/2 oz Pineapple Juice)
1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
1/2 oz Honey Syrup
1/2 oz Lime Juice
10 leaf Mint

Blend with 6 oz crushed ice, pour into a tall glass, and garnish with a lime wheel and mint sprig.

After seeing some blog traffic from a Reddit thread about the Missionary's Downfall, I decided to riff on that drink idea before my mint patch bid adieu for the season. Using the modified recipe from Beachbum Berry's Latitude 29 as a base, instead of the peach liqueur, I thought that passion fruit syrup might perform rather well with the lime and pineapple here. Moreover, the combination of honey and passion fruit was one that worked superbly in the Don's Special Daiquiri. While the original called for a lighter flavored rum, I opted for a grassy and funky agricole and supplemented the flavors with a smoky mezcal akin to the Miracles Take Longer. Given the pineapple and other South Pacific flavors, I changed the downfall aspect to honor the last queen of Hawaii, Lili'uokalani, for in 1893 American sugar cane planters staged a coup that ended the Hawaiian monarchy.

The Lili'uokalani's Downfall shared mint, lime, and tropical aromas from the passion fruit and pineapple. Next, lime and honey with hints of pineapple on the sip transitioned to grassy, smokey, honey, and passion fruit flavors on the swallow with a mint finish.

Update 10/8/20: Someone posted this recipe on the Tiki forum on Reddit, and one of the users commented that this was a horrible name. My response was:

As the creator and namer of the drink, I do and it's in my blog post about it. It's a landmark to American imperialism that decimated the glorious indigenous Hawaiian culture. We as Americans should know what we did to acquire pineapple to have in our Tiki drinks. The drink makes you say her name instead of white washing the history of the island.

It's also a riff on a drink with a horrible name and history, the Missionary's Downfall. That drink is about the missionaries who came to destroy indigenous cultures. Were there downfall scorpions or other dangers of the exotic wild or was it the libidinous lure of the native women that made them break their vows of chastity? Given what occurred, it's probably the latter (and not necessarily consensual).

If we're going to do a tribute drink to someone's downfall, the missionaries lose in my book.

With that said, I do like the suggestion of Lili'uokalani's Ascension that someone made.