"Yes love... I WAS happy... My sweet, sweet Scarlette, I love you still." ~ Admiral Bobbery

His wife Scarlette's voyage out of this world and onto the next was one facilitated by sickness. Bobbery's on the other hand might instead be ushered in via a straw. An orange rubber straw right through his keyhole (or since he's got a shipwheel as a key, his wheelhole).

Inspiration

Admiral Bobbery is a veteran sea-faring Bob-omb who joins the team's party after being revived on the isle of Keelhaul Key following the crashing of the party's ship. Bob-ombs tend to explode, and Bobbery is no exception, proceeding to go so far as to blow himself up in battle just for a piece of the crowd's appeal. It felt fitting to draw upon his explosive tendencies as inspiration for part of this drink's makeup. "Spicy" comes to mind when I think of explosivity, but not the pinch of cinnamon nor the heat of peppers. Instead, the spice is inspired by gunpowder, the explodey substance used in many nautical bombs or even in firearms called 'pepperboxes'. Pepperbox? Peppercorn!

His chosen locale of feigned death was a tropical island where one could source both Keelhaul Mangoes and fresh Coconuts. Completing the picture, a sea-faring crew would be remiss without a "Yo Ho Ho" and a bottle of rum! Round up on a few other fruity components and we've got ourselves a peppercorn-mango riff on a classic Painkiller cocktail.

Pink Peppercorn Syrup

The star ingredient, or at least my favorite one here, is the pink peppercorn syrup that distinguishes this Tiki riff from the others. Adding this to your cocktails imparts a light heat on the front of the flavor that seems to brighten fruit flavors like mango and coconut. It also concludes our palate experience with a floral aroma that fades comfortably between sips. 

We made our pink peppercorn syrup by first creating a rich simple syrup (2:1 ratio of sugar:water by weight) and letting it cool slightly. While it cooled we ground up some pink peppercorn (bonus points if you have dried pepper berries) and then combined them with our syrup. The heat was then set to a low simmer and left to do its thing until the syrup began to change color and became fragrant. Although you'd generally strain this before bottling, we opted to keep the peppercorn pieces within the syrup to further infuse the flavor and to allow some of it to make it to the final drink for appearance. 

Flavor Analysis

Such a bright and colorful combination of flavors! For me it's hard not to love Tiki-style drinks, however, there are a few factors here that just seem to play well together. So long as the drink has been adequately mixed, the medley of tropical fruit components meld so well with the rummy funk at the drink's core. In addition to the obvious coconut, mango, and pineapple notes there also exists airs of apricot and dare I say banana! The peppercorn syrup (and some of the pieces of pepper berry skin) amplify the more vegetal fruits such as the mango. As the drink evolves, those fruits tend to dance around each other a bit, but the start and finish of the flavor is facilitated by that peppercorn. Such a warming spice elevates the palate long enough to appreciate and brief enough to not overwhelm. 

Ship Wheel & Garnish

Elaborate garnish displays are the norm for many Tiki drinks and as such this one is no exception! We shoved a number of tropical garnishes into a small ship wheel that we printed on the XBar's home 3D printer. For those interested in the model, we sourced it from Thingiverse.