Recipes
Stormy Skies Jungle Bird
Pineapple and lime on one side, Campari on the other, and a dark cane spirit holding the two together. The Jungle Bird is the tiki drink for people who think they do not like tiki drinks.
Ingredients
- 45 mL Stormy Skies
- 20 mL Campari
- 45 mL pineapple juice
- 15 mL fresh lime juice
- 10 mL sugar syrup (1:1)
Method
- Shake everything hard with ice.
- Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass (a tiki mug if you have one).
- Garnish with a pineapple leaf, or a wedge of pineapple and a lime wheel.
Where it comes from
The Jungle Bird was created in 1978 at the Aviary Bar of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, usually credited to beverage manager Jeffrey Ong, and served as a welcome drink to hotel guests. It stayed a hotel curiosity until Jeff Berry printed it in 2002, and New York bartender Giuseppe Gonzalez rebuilt it with a heavy blackstrap rum in the late 2000s. That version is the one most bars make now, and it is the reason a 1970s hotel drink turned up on the lists of serious cocktail bars.
Stormy Skies sits in the middle: rested on charred bourbon, tawny and shiraz staves, it has the dark fruit and oak grip the drink wants without the molasses weight of a blackstrap. The Campari gives it a bitter edge the pineapple needs.
For a drier, hoppier version, swap in 45 mL Jumpinpin IPA Whisky. The peach and tropical fruit in the whisky pick up the pineapple, and the hops sit well with the Campari.
Alex’s pick: of everything on this list, the Jungle Bird is the one he makes most at home.