Jungle Bird Recipe
Jungle Bird Ingredients
1.5 oz. / 45 ml Jamaican Rum (I used Appleton Signature)
.75 oz. / 22 ml Campari
1.5 oz. / 45 ml Pineapple Juice
.5 oz. / 15 ml Lime Juice
.5 oz. / 15 ml Demerara Syrup
How to make a Jungle Bird
Shake everything with pebble ice and dirty pour, ice and all, into a mai tai glass or a double rocks glass. Top with more pebble ice if there's room.
Garnish with pineapple fronds, a lime wheel, a couple of cherries and a paper umbrella if you have one.
Demerara syrup: equal parts demerara sugar and hot water, stirred until it dissolves. Plain simple syrup works, the drink just loses a little depth.
Rum: any Jamaican rum works. Appleton Signature keeps it bright. If you want the rum to hold its own against the Campari, try Smith & Cross: it's funky and high proof, and you'll still taste it through the bitterness. A blackstrap rum makes the darker, more molasses-heavy version.
Ice: this drink needs pebble or nugget ice. Crushed ice from a Lewis bag will do if you don't have a machine.
The Jungle Bird is the tiki drink for people who think they don't like Campari. Pineapple and demerara take the bitter edge off, Jamaican rum gives it funk, and the whole thing lands somewhere between a daiquiri and a Negroni.
It came out of the Aviary Bar at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in the 1970s, which makes it a rare tiki classic that wasn't invented in California. The original used dark Jamaican rum, and a blackstrap version caught on in the 2010s. I use Appleton Signature, which keeps it a little lighter and lets the pineapple through.
This one is built for pebble ice. Shake it on pebble ice, pour it over more pebble ice, and let it dilute as you drink.
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