Siboney

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Cocktail History

The Siboney is a vintage tiki cocktail that was created by Victor Bergeron at his bar Trader Vic’s in San Francisco, California. The recipe first appeared in Victor’s book Rum Cookery & Drinkery in 1974, and it was made using a lot more fruit juice than rum, but this modernized variation, from Antonio Martinez of Bootlegger Tiki in Palm Springs, California, balances out the fruitiness with more rum spice and rich demerara syrup.

Cocktail Ingredients

To make this cocktail, you’ll need the following ingredients:

Dark Rum: This is a type of rum made with sugarcane, spices, and water that has been barrel aged for an extended period of time. I used Ron Cihuatán 8 Year Indigo Rum.

Pineapple Rum: This is a type of rum made with pineapple, molasses or sugar cane juice, and alcohol. I used Plantation Stiggin’s Fancy Pineapple Rum.

Pineapple Juice: This is the liquid juice of a pineapple. I used fresh pineapple juice.

Lime Juice: This is the liquid juice of a lime. I used freshly squeezed lime juice.

Passion Fruit Syrup: This is a sweetener made with passion fruit juice, cane sugar, gum Arabic powder, and benzoic acid. I used Liber & Co. Tropical Passion Fruit Syrup.

Rich Demerara Syrup: This is a sweetener made with demerara sugar and water. I made mine using this stovetop recipe.

Bartending Tools

To make this cocktail, you’ll need the following bar tools:

Jigger: This is used to measure and pour ingredients. I used the Japanese jigger from the A Bar Above 14-Piece Silver Bar Set.

Boston Shaker: This is used to shake ingredients. I used the Boston shaker from the A Bar Above 14-Piece Silver Bar Set.

Hawthorne Strainer: This is used to strain out ice and solid ingredients after the cocktail is shaken. I used the A Bar Above Hawthorne Strainer.

Chef’s Knife: This is used to cut larger fruits and vegetables into slices for the garnish. I used the OXO Good Grips 8-Inch Chef’s Knife.

Pineapple Corer: This is used to remove the core of the pineapple before it’s juiced. I used the OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Pineapple Corer.

Paring Knife: This is used to cut ingredients. I used the OXO Good Grips 3.5 Inch Paring Knife.

Juicer: This is used to juice citrus, fruits, and vegetables. I used the ALEEHAI Manual Fruit Juicer for the citrus and the Hamilton Beach Large Juicer for the pineapple.

Tasting Notes

This cocktail has the following flavor profile:

• Appearance: Vibrant golden yellow color

• Aroma: Sweet pineapple and passion fruit

• Taste: Pineapple-forward flavor that evolves into rum and passion fruit

• Finish: More spicy rum notes

Kendall’s Take: “In taste alone, this is a pretty good drink, but it’s not complex at all, in my opinion. That’s why I ended up rating it a little lower. I’d mostly just call this a sweet-tart pineapple and passion fruit drink that offers a hint of rum. There are other pineapple tiki cocktails I like quite a bit more than this one, so I’ll be sticking to those, but this one is certainly tasty. And this updated version of the Siboney is definitely an improvement on Trader Vic’s original from what we could tell. The original was even less complex.”

Recipe

This cocktail recipe was found in the book Easy Tiki: A Modern Revival with 60 Recipes by Chloe Frechette.