Cherries, chocolate, vanilla. These flavors are basic building blocks from our collective childhoods that have been tampered with throughout the course of our adult lives because we’ve been subjected to much use of artificial flavors in a variety of ingestible household products. Hence, the chosen three are deeply ingrained within us but in possible negative ways. This is why a friendly neighborhood bartender must tread carefully when using them. Subtlety of course is the weapon of choice here.

Cherry is the biggest component that the corporations and artificial flavor factories have messed with to make our collective subconscious build a bridge to the worst possible criticism a drink could ever receive. Go too far any one way and people will tell you “It tastes like cough syrup.”

You see, I’m attempting to caulk the gap between cocktails and a couple of lip syncers from the late eighties and early nineties that really pulled the proverbial wool over our eyes. We’ll eat fresh cherries, cherry pie, drink Cherry Coke even use any version of the jarred maraschino cherry which are far cries from an actual cherry but once you make cherry syrup it can go downhill fast. I don’t know, I guess calling this Milli Vanilli is a way to say we should accept real cherries more and shame and denounce the fake ones.

The cherry vanilla combo is extraordinary. It makes me believe there is some god, some deity out there keeping track of us all.

Milli Vanilli

1.5 oz. Dark Rum

1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

1 oz. Oloroso Sherry

.5 oz. Lime Sherbet

.5 oz. Cherry Vanilla Syrup

.25 oz. Raw Cherry Pit Creme de Noyaux

Cherry Vanilla Syrup is 1 vanilla bean per 300 grams of raw pitted cherries. Match with equal parts sugar, blend, and strain through a chinois. But wait, don’t throw away the waste. Put it in a jar with some rum, cinnamon, allspice berries, a piece of raw ginger, some cloves, a vanilla bean, and a minuscule amount of star anise and you now have yourself a working batch of spiced rum. You could also use the waste to make Rock & Rye. More on that another time.

Yes, save the pits and make yourself a little cherry creme de noyaux.

Is this tiki? Probably not. I think of tiki as anything with a tropical tinge, twinge.