Keep your cool

Trader Vic’s Kamaiina
I was born too late to get in on the first wave of the tiki craze, but it's always fascinated me.

When I married a Los Angeleno, I told him that on one of our trips to visit his family, we would have to make a pilgrimage to the Beverly Hills Trader Vic’s, the tiki chain to end all tiki chains.

Raised on the cliques and snobbery of “90210,” I feared that we non-hipsters wouldn’t fit in. But everybody fits in at Trader Vic’s. Vic’s invented the mai tai, so I felt I had to try one, but it wasn’t my favorite. That honor went to the Kamaiina, which supposedly means “old-timer” in Hawaiian.

Despite the easy-to-forget name, the Kamaiina ruled the room.

Not only because it's served in one of those goofy ceramic coconuts, but because it goes down smooth as glass and reminds me of breezy nights under the tropical moon. Trader Vic’s menu is vague about ingredients, but Web bulletin board tikiroom.com offers this recipe. You’ll have to provide your own ceramic coconut.

2 oz. 7-Up
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. triple sec
1 oz. Lopez coconut cream
1 oz. gin

Shake well with ice cubes, or mix in commercial mixer. Pour into ceramic coconut. Garnish with fresh mint and fruit stick.

-G.F.C.

Gimlet
Mystery shrouds the precise origins of this drink, but all roads seem to lead back to the British Royal Navy. No surprise, seeing as how Brits love gin and how scurvy-wary seamen were big on limes.

A proper gimlet — which is to say, with gin — is the perfect summer solution when it's too hot for a martini and you're bored with gin and tonics. It's a bit sweet, a bit sour and necessarily served ice-cold.

Just as with martinis, vodka seems to have had its insidious way with the gimlet. But juniper and the other botanicals in gin are what truly make this drink. So if a bartender happens to serve you one with vodka, keep your cool. Then demand gin.

4 parts Bombay Sapphire or other good gin
1 part Rose's lime juice

Best ratio is probably 2 oz. gin to 1/2 oz. lime juice.  Pour into ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake well, strain into a martini glass and serve.

-J.B.