The Fog Cutter

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Invented by "Trader Vic" Bergeron, the Fog Cutter follows a recipe that at first blush is hard to believe. It involves rum, gin, brandy, and sherry. (Also dry curaçao, if you go with the version I prefer.) But it's the best Tiki cocktail I've made so far. 

Here's the original recipe: 

2 oz light Puerto Rican rum
1 oz brandy
1/2 oz gin
2 oz lemon juice
1 oz orange juice
1/2 oz orgeat
1/2 oz sherry 

Shake with cube ice, strain into a glass, and fill the glass (preferably a Zombie glass) with crushed ice. You can also use a Fog Cutter mug (yes, it has its own Tiki mug). 

Smuggler's Cove, considered an authoritative source for authentic but slightly updated Tiki cocktails, uses this variant:

 2 oz lightly aged rum
1 oz pisco (a Peruvian brandy)
1/2 oz gin
1 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 oz fresh orange juice
1/2 oz orgeat
1/2 oz oloroso sherry 

Combine all the ingredients except the sherry in a mixing tin with 12 oz of crushed ice and 4-6 "agitator" cubes. (An agitator cube is simply a regular size ice cube.) Flash blend (never mind that part, unless you own a flash blender, not the regular blender you probably have in your kitchen), then open pour with "gated finish" (essentially use a Hawthorne strainer to hold back the remaining ice, so that only the remaining liquid gets into the into the Zombie glass or Fog Cutter mug you're presumably using. 

This sounds overly complicated to me, so I just put the ingredients (except the sherry) in a Boston shaker, then added the crushed ice, then shook the contents, then open poured the whole thing into a 16-oz glass. (I had neither a Zombie glass nor a Fog Cutter mug.) 

Then I floated the sherry, garnished with an orange wheel and sprig of mint, and marveled at how amazing the cocktail tasted. 

For round two, I substituted 1/2 oz of dry curaçao in place of the orange juice. This was even better, although perhaps drinking a total of 8 1/2 oz of booze put me in a generous mood. 

Trader Vic's, incidentally, "strictly" limited customers to no more than two Fog Cutters, which may have been just a gimmick but was definitely a good idea.


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