Octopus Menagerie

First day back to ye old mixology lab, and my project today is the Octopus, inspired by Facebook wall post by my friend Corey. I got a bunch of Octopus variations here… perhaps enough for an Octopus Menagerie?

… Starting with: the original Octopus. Jeff Berry says that it was a recipe of Al Hong, restaurateur of Trader Vic’s Waikiki (no apparent relation to Raymond Hong of House of Hong, which closed in 2004). Al Hong’s Octopus is as follows:

The Octopus
1.5 oz passion fruit juice
1.5 oz orange juice
1.5 oz Puerto Rican 151
1.5 oz club soda
Dash Angostura bitters
Mix in a tiki mug with crushed ice.

This, as you can see, is basically passo with a Puerto Rican 151 and soda. Why anyone would want to drink that is kind of beyond me… except that canned passo (like by Hawaiian Sun and Aloha Maid) is so plentiful back home that making drinks with them is really cheap and easy.

I actually have 3 different 151s here, so my first variation used all three of them:

Octopus a Trois
1.5 oz passion fruit juice (I used Aunty Lilikoi’s of Kauai)
1.5 oz orange juice
1.5 oz club soda
0.5 oz El Dorado 151
0.5 oz Lemon Hart 151
0.5 oz Bacardi 151
2 dashes Angostura

That really came out nice. I don’t particularly like the taste of Bacardi 151, and since each of the others are demerara-based, I feel like they make a good combo together.

Helen wanted a Virgin Octopus. Without the rum, it would be carbonated passion orange… so I had to find something else to substitute for the rum. Orgeat worked pretty well… but too much of it makes it too almondy. I had a spare clementine laying around, so I sprayed a puff of its juice when I was pau… then I remembered Don’s Mix—cinnamon syrup & fresh grapefruit juice; used for the Donga Punch—and was inspired to do a variation on that: cinnamon-clove syrup & fresh clementine juice—I call it Con’s Mix… (haha)

Virgin Octopus
1.0 oz passion fruit juice (I used Aunty Lilikoi’s of Kauai)
1.0 oz orange juice
1.0 oz fresh lemon juice
1.0 oz simple syrup
1.0 oz club soda
1.0 oz orgeat (I was out of my homemade orgeat so had to use Fee’s)
1.0 oz Con’s Mix
2 dashes Angostura
Rinse of Con’s Mix

Wong’s Con’s Mix
1 part fresh cinnamon-clove syrup
1 part fresh clementine juice

Build at room temperature. Shake all ingredients (incl. 1 oz of Con’s Mix) with rocks. Double strain into an old fashioned glass that’s also been rinsed with Con’s Mix.

Lastly is today’s crown jewel, the Octopus Sour! The recipe for this one is the same as the Octopus a Trois, except at the end you add a 1 oz drizzle of sour mix: 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice + 1.0 oz rich simple syrup.

Octopus Sour
1.5 oz passion fruit juice (I used Aunty Lilikoi’s)
1.5 oz orange juice
1.5 oz club soda
0.5 oz El Dorado 151
0.5 oz Lemon Hart 151
0.5 oz Bacardi 151
2 dashes Angostura
Build at room temperature and shake with rocks. Double strain into a double old fashioned glass with crushed ice.

Sour Drizzle
0.5 oz fresh lemon juice
1.0 oz rich simple syrup
Stir in a beaker until thoroughly mixed. Strain and drizzle.

I found the fresh lemon juice really helps to balance the sweetness of the passion fruit and orange juices, yet while the rich simple syrup drizzle (2:1 sugar to water) gives the palette a little treat as the drink goes down.

After I had an Octopus Sour, I felt like the shark in this video: