To Serve Man
Rum

Banana Cow

Glass
Wine Glass

Trader Vic's banana-and-milk rum breakfast tonic from his 1946 Book of Food and Drink.

rum tiki banana shaken mid-century blended
Scale
Print

Ingredients

  • ripe banana (1)
  • bar sugar (2 tsp)
  • fresh whole milk (3 oz)
  • Puerto Rican rum (1.5 oz)
  • crushed ice (1 cup)
  • grated nutmeg (1 pinch)

Instructions

  1. In a shaker combine ripe banana (crushed), bar sugar, fresh whole milk, and Puerto Rican rum with crushed ice.
  2. Shake well (or blend with crushed ice in a blender on low until smooth).
  3. Strain into a large chilled goblet.
  4. Dust with a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Sources

  1. Bergeron, Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink (1946), p. 126, Vic's own "world's finest, greatest, oh-so-good peachy hangover special" prescription. ↩
  2. Bergeron, Bartender's Guide, by Trader Vic (1947), p. 296, the second printing of the Banana Cow spec, carrying the recipe forward into the 1948 Garden City Books reprint. ↩
  3. Cate & Cate, Smuggler's Cove (2016), Trader Vic chapter, credits Banana Cow as one of the early tropicals that proved out the commercial logic of Vic's exotic-drinks program. Vic's authorship here is uncontested in modern historiography. ↩
  4. "Banana Cow." Difford's Guide. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/536/banana-cow (accessed 2026-05-03), modern published spec consistent with this file's measurements.