Let’s Get Tropical

Travel Distilled reviews Let’s Get Tropical by Georgi Radev, a collection of over 60 tropical cocktail and tiki drink recipes.

Let’s Get Tropical provides a history of the tropical cocktail and brings together over 60 cocktail recipes, from Caribbean classics to modern tiki drinks.

The Author

Georgi Radev is a bartender whose cocktails have won awards, and who has travelled all over the world in pursuit of his favourite tropical cocktails. He managed a well-known London bar called Mahiki, created the Spirit of Tiki Cocktail Festival, and recently opened a new London bar called Laki Kane. It’s the first in the world to have its own micro rum distillery on the premises.

What Is a Tropical Cocktail?

So, what is a tropical cocktail? That’s the first thing the author clears up.

“Tropical cocktails are all about using delicious ingredients from tropical destinations. They make use of the fresh fruits and exotic spices, and immediately conjure up an image of a place.”

One of the fun facts I learned in the brief history of the tropical cocktail that opens the book is that grog was an early tropical cocktail. The British Navy’s rum allowance that began in the 17^th century took what we now call Navy Strength rum, watered it down a little, and mixed it with sugar and citrus fruit, providing energy and health benefits to the sailors. Grog, by the way, was named after the admiral who invented the drink, who was nicknamed Old Grog.

Thank You, Prohibition!

In a strange twist we owe the popularity of tropical cocktails and the invention of the tiki bar to Prohibition. During that period, lots of bartenders obviously lost their jobs and many took the opportunity to go travelling and find work in places such as Mexico and Cuba. Here they learned the popular tropical cocktails, which they brought back with them to the USA when they returned.

One of the earliest, and possibly the very first, tiki bar was opened in 1933, the year Prohibition ended, by Ernest Gantt, who had done more travelling than most. He called the bar Don the Beachcomber, and later changed his own name to Donn Beach.

How is Rum Made?

Before getting to the cocktails, the author explains how rum is made, and the different types of rum that there are. He then goes on to other tropical spirits, like tequila, mezcal, and pisco. There’s a section on the tools and equipment you’ll need in order to make your tropical cocktails, and then a very helpful section showing you how to shake a cocktail shaker properly (it’s a very visual book), and how to Mix Like a Pro.

Make Your Own Punch

The book provides you with a good basic recipe for making any kind of punch, which is one part sour, two parts sweet, three parts strong, four parts weak, and spice to be nice. There’s a section on classic garnishes, followed by one I really liked, on how to make more creative garnishes, like orange feathers and apple fans, to give your own cocktails a more classy look.

Let’s Get Tropical: The Cocktails

The bulk of the book is obviously the cocktail collection, and the pages are very attractively designed and laid out. The author has been creative in his approach, too. The two-page spread on each cocktail gives you a photo, some history, the classic recipe, and any extras needed, like the traditional garnish for each drink.

Most cocktails get a second two-page spread, though, and this is where the creativity comes in. The author provides several reinventions of the cocktail, sometimes trying different spirits, sometimes different mixers, and sometimes he suggests a mocktail recipe, so you can enjoy the drink if you don’t want the booze.

There’s also a handy spread of the author’s Top 10 Quick Wins, ten cocktails that are quick and easy to make and that you should have in your repertoire.

Oops

Unfortunately the book has a number of errors in it, both factual and by way of typos, suggesting it wasn’t very well proof-read. On page 13, for example, the author says that ‘The portion of rum that is lost to distillation is called the “Angels’ Share”.’ Well, the Angels’ Share is not what is lost during distillation, it’s what evaporates when the spirit is maturing in its barrels.

Three pages further on when we get to tequila, there’s another howler when the author says that tequila must be ‘produced in Mexico in the region of Tequila.’ Oh dear. Tequila is the name of a city, not a region. The state that it’s in is Jalisco, which is where most tequila is made, but there are four other states where it can also be made.

On the same page there’s a word missing from one sentence: ‘tequila can processed with or without ageing.’ I’d also take issue with him when he says that: ‘There is less variety across tequila styles’. That’s a difference of opinion, however, but he makes another mistake when he says there are only three styles of tequila: blanco, reposado and aňejo. There is, of course, extra aňejo as well.