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No matter where you are or the time of year, a well-made tropical cocktail will always provide the perfect escape in a glass. This subgenre of 20th-century mixology can trace its roots to Hollywood in 1934 with the founding of Donn Beach’s legendary Don the Beachcomber bar. This singular style of loosely Polynesian and Caribbean-inspired décor and drinks was a quick hit among the Hollywood elite. Donn Beach’s bar inspired many, like his prolific contemporary rival Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron, to adopt his rum-soaked, yet layered and complex, tropical style of mixing drinks.
Though usually associated with beach bars and poolside sips, the best tropical cocktails have unique and fascinating stories and were originally crafted with a great deal of care and intent. Because of the attention to detail that their original creators — and the ingenious tweaks of modern bartenders like Martin Cate and Jeff “Beachbum” Berry — tropical cocktails are as popular and as delicious as they’ve ever been. For anyone who has ever had a passing interest in tropical kitsch and nautical nostalgia, there’s never been a better time to dive in.
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Original 1944 Mai Tai
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
Trader Vic’s original Mai Tai showcases the richness of aged rum, enhanced with lime juice, orange curaçao, and orgeat syrup — no pineapple juice or grenadine here. This 1944 classic balances high-quality rum with bright citrus and nutty, subtly sweet orgeat, allowing the rum to shine rather than hide. Served over crushed ice and garnished with mint and lime, it’s masterfully balanced and delivers refreshing depth in every sip.
Jungle Bird
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
Bold Jamaican rum meets the bitter complexity of Campari in the Jungle Bird, which is rounded out with fresh pineapple juice, lime juice, and simple syrup. This combination blends tropical sweetness with Campari’s distinctive citric bitterness, making it as intriguing as it is refreshing. Served over ice with a pineapple wedge, it’s a cocktail that balances lush fruit and bitter sophistication.
Fog Cutter
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
The Fog Cutter is a unique mix of light rum, gin, and Cognac with fresh orange and lemon juices, orgeat syrup, and a surprising float of sherry. This layered drink offers bright citrus, rich nuttiness, and a complex interplay of spirits. Despite its potent base, the Fog Cutter is remarkably balanced, refreshing, nuanced, and deeply flavorful.
Daiquirí Clásico
Food & Wine / Photo by Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling
The Daiquirí Clásico distills cocktail perfection into three ingredients: rum, lime, and sugar. With no flourishes or fillers, it’s a showcase of pure balance and bartending skill. The basis of bright citrus, sweetness, and a spirit showcased in the Daiquiri is also the basic formula that almost all tropical cocktails evolved from.. Proof that less can be infinitely more, this classic daiquiri is a timeless standard.
Kingston Club
Tim Nusog / Food & Wine
A modern Jeffrey Morgenthaler classic, the Kingston Club brings together Fernet-Branca, Drambuie, pineapple juice, lime juice, and Angostura bitters, then tops the mix with soda water. The herbal bitterness of Fernet plays against Drambuie’s honeyed sweetness, while pineapple and lime add a tropical brightness. The result is a modern cocktail that feels timeless, both refreshing and layered in complexity.
Corn ‘n Oil
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
Hailing from Barbados, the Corn ’n Oil blends rich, aged rum with falernum, lime juice, and bitters for a stirred drink that’s smooth yet full of spice. Dark and warming with a pop of citrus, it’s a nod to more than a century of Caribbean tradition. The cocktail’s name may seem odd, but its flavor is deep, lingering, and complex.
Suffering Bastard
Despite its name, the Suffering Bastard is all about refreshment. Built on a base of gin and brandy with ginger beer, lime, and bitters, it’s crisp, lightly spiced, and endlessly drinkable. Originally designed to help revive over-imbibed soldiers, it was later adopted by Trader Vic as part of his tropical cocktail pantheon.
Queen’s Park Swizzle
Food & Wine / Tim Nusong
Originating in Trinidad, the Queen’s Park Swizzle is a vibrant mix of rum, lime, sugar, mint, and bitters. Its layered colors and crushed-ice presentation are as inviting as its taste. Cool and refreshing like a mojito, but with the added baking spice of Angostura bitters, tastes and feels like a warm-weather escape.
Three Dots and a Dash
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
Named after the Morse code signal for “victory,” this Donn Beach classic blends a combination of rums with falernum, allspice dram, honey syrup, lime and orange juices, and bitters. Garnished with three cherries, it’s bold, spicy, and layered with rich tropical sweetness — a visual and flavorful nod to its namesake.
Jet Pilot
Food & Wine / Photo by Fred Hardy / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Hannah Greenwood
Created in 1958 at The Luau in Los Angeles, the Jet Pilot combines three styles of rum with grapefruit, lime, falernum, cinnamon syrup, and dashes of absinthe and bitters. Boozy yet balanced, with spice, citrus, and deeply aged rum character, it’s a quick-hitting, high-impact drink that perfectly captures the mindset of mid-century tropical cocktail creation.
Navy Grog
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
Inspired by Royal Navy rum rations, the Navy Grog blends Jamaican rum, demerara rum, and white rum with honey syrup, grapefruit juice, lime juice, and a splash of club soda. Originally created by Donn Beach and later reworked by Trader Vic, it balances funky, molasses-rich, and crisp rum notes with bright citrus and honey sweetness. Grapefruit adds a hint of bitterness, while soda and fresh mint lend a refreshing lift.
Piña Colada
Food & Wine / Photo by Fred Hardy / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Hannah Greenwood
Originating in Puerto Rico, the Piña Colada needs no introduction. Often attributed to the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, it’s a creamy expression of pineapple, coconut, and Puerto Rican rum that delivers Caribbean flavors any time, anywhere.
Saturn
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
Created by California bartender J. “Popo” Galsini, the Saturn blends gin with lemon juice, passion‑fruit syrup, orgeat, and falernum, blended with crushed ice into a frozen delight. Its citrus backbone, tropical fruit sweetness, and subtle almond and spice notes offer multi‑layered flavor that harmonizes long before the first sip. This bright, frosty cocktail offers a tropical twist to gin’s botanical character that stands out in the pantheon of tropical cocktails.
Blue Hawaii
Food & Wine / Photo by Fred Hardy / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Hannah Greenwood
The classic Blue Hawaii blends vodka and light Puerto Rican rum with blue curaçao, pineapple juice, fresh lime juice, and simple syrup, shaken hard and served over crushed ice. Created in 1957 by Honolulu bartender Harry Yee at the Kaiser Hawaiian Village, it’s bright, citrus-pineapple forward with a clean split-base spirit profile. Garnish with a pineapple wedge — and yes, this is the drink that popularized the mini cocktail umbrella.
Painkiller
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
The Painkiller combines dark rum with pineapple juice, orange juice, and creamy coconut for a lush, sun‑soaked experience. Pusser’s rum gives it weight and oakiness, while pineapple and orange bring tropical brightness. Similar to the Piña Colada, coconut rounds out the drink with velvety sweetness. Garnished with freshly grated nutmeg and a pineapple wedge, it’s shaken, served over crushed ice, and designed for maximum refreshment at the beach or backyard bar.
Hotel Nacional Cocktail
Food & Wine / Tim Nusog
The Hotel Nacional Special, a 1930s Cuban cocktail, combines rum, apricot liqueur, pineapple juice, lime juice, and simple syrup. A variation on the daiquiri, it layers fruity depth from apricot and pineapple with balancing lime and just the right amount of sweetness. It’s a sophisticated tropical twist on a classic, capturing the spirit of Havana’s golden age of cocktails.
