Tiki Time Cocktail

For International Octopus Day

Your cocktail calendar entry for: October

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We’ll be mixing the Tiki Time cocktail on October 8. As you might expect for the eighth day of the eight month of the year it’s International Octopus Day so we’ll need something to toast our squishy friends. Keep in mind that we’re mixing drinks, not preparing seafood cocktails in the kitchen. How we get to a gin-based drink called Tiki Time follows. In the meantime, let’s consider the aquatic beasts.

Octopuses

As our astute readers are already aware an octopus is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusk living in the sea. It’s got a couple of eyes and being squishy it can alter its shape and slip through small gaps. They’ve been around since before dinosaurs like the tyrannosaurus were making mischief and live in every ocean around the world. Octopuses have good taste and enjoy spending their days eating crabs, shrimp and lobsters. Like their squid friends, octopuses often get the street cred of being considered monsters of the deep

They’re also remarkably smart for a squishy thing in the ocean. Octopuses have been shown to learn lessons and use discarded coconut shells as little mobile homes. But the prize for smartest octopus probably goes to Paul the Octopus.

Paul the Octopus was a common octopus at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, and he proved his mettle as a sports bookmaker. His human staff asked him to predict World Cup football (soccer) games. He did not disappoint. Paul would be presented with two food-containing boxes decorated with the flags of the teams in an upcoming match. Whichever box he ate from first was considered his prediction for the game.

Just getting started, Paul was able to correctly predict the winning team in four out of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches. After that he was unbeatable. He was correct about all seven of Germany’s matches in the 2010 World Cup and correctly predicted Spain as the winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup final. He ultimately provided twelve correct predictions out of fourteen matches, a success rate of nearly 86%.

Unfortunately, Paul passed away at the age of two-and-a-half, a normal lifespan for his species but long before he was old enough to bet on the games.

The Tiki Time Cocktail

For our actual Drink of the Day, the Tiki Time cocktail, we turn to another octopus, Squidward Q. Tentacles. Squidward is a character in the TV series SpongeBob SquarePants and is actually a six-legged octopus despite the word squid in his name. He lives right between SpongeBob and his friend Patrick Star and is generally short-tempered, condescending and arrogant. Squidward actually hates his neighbors, but being unaware of this they consider him a friend. He works at the Krusty Krab restaurant as a cashier.

Squidward, of course, lives in the city of Bikini Bottom and his house is a moai, meaning like the statues on Easter Island. Very tiki-ish, and in the episode Enchanted Tiki Dreams Squidward is enjoying a tiki drink when the surrounding tiki idols break into the song Squidward’s Tiki Land. That means International Octopus Day is clearly tiki time, the perfect occasion to mix the Tiki Time cocktail.

The Tiki Time recipe was created by Charlotte Voisey. An English bartender, she spent about five years in bars within London and Argentina, but then moved to the U.S. where she has won Best American Brand Ambassador as well as the Golden Spirit Award at Tales of the Cocktail. That’s like an Oscar in the booze business. She has also contributed drinks to such esteemed bars as PDT and the iconic Dorchester hotel in London.

The Tiki Time recipe is somewhat unusual for the tiki genre by being based on gin rather than rum. Nonetheless, it certainly fits the tiki mold through use of orgeat, lime juice and coconut water. It’s actually quite similar to the Green Isaac Special we mixed for Hemingway’s birthday and which is handy if you’re out of orgeat. Other tiki-type choices we’ve covered include drinks like the Luau cocktail and Piña Verde.

Tiki Time Cocktail

Created by Charlotte Voisey, the Tiki Time is a gin-based tiki style drink. Very refreshing and appropriate as an afternoon tipple or whenever you're feeling tiki-ish.