Adam, Kaiser Penguin’s Forbidden Island correspondent, reports in on Dark ‘n Stormy Night. (I want to be Kaiser Penguin’s FI correspondent! — Rick) Tiki-mecca Forbidden Island recently hosted this event as part of their glee-inducing, month-long RUMFEST event. It was hosted by Gosling’s, and in addition to the evening’s namesake (their signature drink), Gosling’s Old […]

My trip to Portland last year included several visits to Powell’s book store. For those who don’t know of it, imagine a used book store that stocked 5-10 new used cocktail guides nearly every day. Seriously. Cocktails for Two caught my eye, and unsurprisingly so. The cover features a Manhattan poised in front of ruby […]

I was nearly 100% sure I would find this cocktail foul and evil. I’ve never eaten an apple with licorice before. But I imagine if I smashed the two together in my hand, this is what it would smell like. I took a quick photo-snap of what happened to be on my table at the […]

I never gave the Old Waldorf-Astoria more than a glance after it came with a shipment of other cocktail and cook books nearly a year ago. Boy what a mistake that was. I dug it out the other day, remembering it included more than a handful of gin-laden cocktails. To my surprise, every drink I’ve […]

Some may say this guide is a bit late, but those same people have probably started or finished their shopping, unlike one lazy Kaiser Penguin I know. Sippin’ Safari If for some reason I haven’t convinced you to pick up this book yet, it’s probably your first time visiting Kaiser Penguin. Sippin’ Safari is a […]

I wanted to find a cocktail guide that was published as close to Repeal Day (Wikipedia) as possible. My stash from Powell’s in Portland was nearly untouched, so I looked there. After digging through a dust-filled box, I found a wood and leather-bound cocktail guide from 1941 called Here’s How. It somehow remained in pristine […]

Gin is finding its way into more and more cocktails as fall turns to winter, and absinthe isn’t far behind. The lonely bottle of falernum sits idly in the refrigerator, begging me to make another tiki drink, but I’ve found other uses for it … Le Demon Vert 1 1/2oz gin (used Plymouth) 1/2oz absinthe […]

For the longest time I skipped over the unobtainable substance known as Pimento Dram when crafting the Bum’s recipes. It was in the same category of ingredients like longan from Morimoto’s new cookbook or black truffles from nearly every French cookbook I own. We have a Wegman’s, but they sure don’t sell high quality cocktail […]

[ed. Written by KP correspondent, Adam, who lives closer (by about 6 hours) to Forbidden Island than me.] As I hope is apparent by now, we here at KP always strive for the very highest quality of ingredients when it comes to cocktails (revelations about my sordid past with Captain Morgan notwithstanding). With that in […]

A recent comment on my shrub post prompted me to post this question. To clarify if you haven’t seen the post, I’ll quote Martin, the owner and fine exotic cocktail scientist from Forbidden Island: “What’s all this #&%$* about tiki season fading? What are you, some kind of @#*&! communist?” I found this remark to […]