Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Scorpion Bowl!

The Godzilla of Tiki cocktails, just in time for a long, hot weekend.

Photo courtesy of Tiki Underground.

Greetings, Wonketeers, and welcome to a long, well-deserved weekend! I went to my old hangout Tiki Underground last weekend for their epic Tiki Flea market. I came home with a mai tai glass, some vintage swizzle sticks, and the seeds of an epic hangover. Worth it. Let’s cap off a month of tiki with the most gloriously epic, over the top tiki cocktail in Trader Vic’s pantheon. Time to gaze longingly at a Scorpion Bowl (because if any of you rum rats actually make this at home, I’ll be floored). Here’s the recipe: 

Scorpion Bowl

2 oz fresh lime juice

4 oz fresh orange juice

1 ½ oz Demerara syrup

2 oz pineapple juice

2 oz Korbel brandy

4 oz Beefeater gin

4 oz Bacardi Gold rum

Add all ingredients to a two-part mixing tin without ice. Pour back and forth between the two tumblers until all ingredients are combined. Pour half the drink into a separate glass. Shake the rest of the drink and strain into an iced scorpion bowl. Fill your tumbler with the reserved cocktail, shake, and add it to the scorpion bowl as well. Garnish with orange wheels, lime wheels, paper umbrellas, edible flowers, four straws, and a flaming lime. Serves 4. 

Lone Scorpion

½ oz lime juice

1 oz fresh orange juice

¼ oz Demerara syrup

½ oz pineapple juice

½ oz Korbel brandy

1 oz Beefeater gin

1 oz Bacardi Gold rum

Shake all ingredients and pour into a tiki mug garnished with everything. Serves 1. 

I’ve included a single serving of this drink for the sake of completion, but please don’t drink it alone. Like a pu pu platter, this drink is meant to be shared. This is a cocktail about excess, celebration, and communal oohs and ahs. It’s not a drink; it’s an event. You’re just as likely to find this cocktail on the menu of your local hibachi joint as a classic tiki bar. Mind you, the drink at your local temple of tiki will be much better than what the waitress at the Polynesian grill throws together. But a sloppy Scorpion isn’t the worst thing in the world. There’s so much booze and juice involved in the process that you won’t mind the end result.

Polynesian food and tiki have always been joined at the hip. “Polynesian” food, when it comes to tiki, means upscale, culturally appropriated Cantonese food. Donn Beach’s wife suggested they hire a chef from the nearby Chinese restaurant when they expanded. They fancied up the recipes with a bit more pineapple, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots — just enough to call it “Polynesian” and elevate it from the local Chinese takeout. The menu was a hit. Trader Vic took the idea even further when he hired Joe Young, an Asian American chef who invented Chinese-American fusion dishes like crab rangoon and the pu pu platter. When tiki bars fell out of fashion, the last vestiges of tiki cocktails remained at the Chinese restaurants, at least in name. The recipes sort of … devolved over time. I’ve been served bright pink mai tais at hibachi bars, much to my sorrow. But a Scorpion Bowl is in a class by itself. As long as it’s generous, shareable, and beautiful, the details don’t need to get in the way. 

Let’s talk ingredients:

Tiki flea market shot. So many awesome tiki mugs, from modern works of art to vintage mugs from bars long gone.

Lime juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice: Some of these juices really do need to be fresh. Lime juice, as always, is a must. If you can get fresh OJ for this drink, by all means do so; bottled OJ always seems more acidic than the real stuff. Pineapple juice, on the other hand, is best from a can. Fresh pineapple juice is far too acidic to drink under any circumstance. If you want to stretch this cocktail out a bit — say, if you’re making a pitcher full for a Memorial Day cookout — start here. This recipe is nearly 50/50 booze and juice, so some more mixers to smooth things out won’t hurt. 

Demerara syrup: Equal parts water and Sugar in the Raw, heated in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. The sheer size of this drink makes it difficult to adjust the sweetness. I’m pretty sure this amount of sugar is correct for this drink, but take notes and adjust the second time you make it, if necessary. 

Korbel Brandy: In case you can’t tell, this drink is an “all hands on deck” sort of affair where you grab every bottle of booze you have available. It’s not a Long Island Iced Tea — I do have my standards — but this is not the place to pull out the top shelf bottles. Korbel is fine. Hennessy is better, but I’ve still got the cheap stuff left over from that Wisconsin Old Fashioned we talked about a few weeks back. Might as well use it up.

Beefeater Gin: The kings of tiki — Donn Beach, Trader Vic, et al. — never had quality gin to work with. This isn’t really a place to begin using it. If you are violently allergic to gin, go ahead and use vodka here. Just don’t tell me about it after.

Bacardi Gold: I agonized about this one a bit. I am, as you all know, a total rum snob. I never recommend Bacardi. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that there are so many better choices. But here, in this glass, I think it fits. This drink is big, shareable, and celebratory. That’s the best environment for middle-of-the-road Bacardi to thrive. 

Preparation: In case it wasn’t clear, a “scorpion bowl” is the name for the vessel this cocktail is served in, not just the drink itself. If you followed my advice and ordered this at your local tiki bar, you’ll understand right away.

Garnish: Use. Everything. Raid the garnish stand — fruit slices, cherries, flaming limes, you name it. This drink is meant to be over the top. Hold nothing back. 

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!  

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