Rum

Deep Sea Diver

Name: Deep Sea Diver
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Pearl Diver Glass

Mariano Licudine's Mai-Kai descendant of Donn Beach's Pearl Diver, gold Jamaican, honey-butter cream, Don's Spices

rum tiki mid-century blended jamaican honey falernum

Ingredients

softened unsalted butter (1 oz)
honey (4 oz)
allspice dram (1 oz)
vanilla syrup (1 oz)
fresh lime juice (1 oz)
fresh orange juice (0.5 oz)
honey cream mix (0.75 oz)
falernum (1 tsp)
light Puerto Rican rum (1 oz)
gold Jamaican rum (1.5 oz)
crushed ice (0.5 cup)
red cherries (3)
pineapple chunk (1)

The Deep Sea Diver descends directly from Donn Beach's 1930s Pearl Diver and Pearl Diver's Punch.¹ When Licudine carried Donn's catalog from Don the Beachcomber's Chicago bar to the Mai-Kai in 1956, the Pearl Diver was renamed and its honey-butter mix simplified into the Mai-Kai's "honey cream mix", softened butter blended into honey, no Donn's Gardenia Mix.² Don's Spices #2 (equal parts allspice dram and vanilla syrup) is the canonical batch-spice that Berry decoded from the Beachcomber notebooks and published in Remixed; it gives the drink its lime-honey-allspice signature.³

Brand recommendations. Best: Appleton Estate 12 Rare Casks for the gold Jamaican, Don Q Cristal or Cruzan Estate Diamond Light for the light Puerto Rican / Virgin Islands rum, St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram and BG Reynolds vanilla syrup for Don's Spices #2, John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum. Economical: Appleton Estate Signature, Cruzan Aged Light, Hamilton Pimento Dram with homemade vanilla syrup, BG Reynolds falernum.

Instructions

First make the honey cream mix: combine softened unsalted butter with honey and stir until fully integrated; refrigerate.
Then make Don's Spices 2: combine equal parts allspice dram and vanilla syrup in a sealed jar.
For each drink, in a blender combine fresh lime juice, fresh orange juice, honey cream mix, Don's Spices 2, falernum, light Puerto Rican rum, and gold Jamaican rum.
Add crushed ice and pulse blend for .
Pour unstrained into a pearl diver glass and top with additional crushed ice to fill.
Garnish with three speared red cherries and a pineapple chunk.

Sources

Hurricane Hayward, "Mai-Kai cocktail review: Legacy of this classic drink runs deep." The Atomic Grog. https://www.slammie.com/atomicgrog/blog/2011/09/21/mai-kai-cocktail-review-legacy-of-this-classic-drink-runs-deep/ (accessed 2026-05-03), documents the Deep Sea Diver as a 1956-opening Mai-Kai descendant of Donn Beach's 1937 Pearl Diver's Punch and Pearl Diver; the source for this file's measurement bill. ↩
Wikipedia, "Mai-Kai Restaurant." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai-Kai_Restaurant (accessed 2026-05-03), corroborates Licudine's 1956 move from Don the Beachcomber Chicago to Mai-Kai and his role designing the (largely unchanged) opening cocktail menu. ↩
Berry, Beachbum Berry Remixed (2010), Pearl Diver / Don's Spices #2 entries, Berry's notebook decoding of Don's Spices #2 (equal parts allspice dram and vanilla syrup) and the Pearl Diver ancestor spec. ↩