Rum

Luau Daiquirí

Name: Luau Daiquirí
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Coupe

Stephen Crane's Beverly Hills Luau Daiquirí, orange and vanilla over the Floridita template, recovered by Beachbum Berry from coded Crane logs.

rum tiki cuban mid-century shaken lime daiquiri-variant

Ingredients

fresh lime juice (0.75 oz)
fresh orange juice (0.75 oz)
vanilla syrup (0.5 oz)
white Cuban-style rum (2 oz)
edible orchid (1)
lime wheel (1)

The Luau opened on Rodeo Drive in 1953 under former Columbia Pictures contract player and Lana Turner ex-husband Stephen Crane, and it ran as Beverly Hills' premier Polynesian Pop room into the 1970s.¹ Crane was famously paranoid about his recipes and recorded them in code, which is why so few of his specs survived intact, Beachbum Berry's Sippin' Safari research did the decoding work.² The Luau Daiquirí is structurally a Cuban daiquiri (Constantino Ribalaigua Vert's Floridita template of white rum, lime, sugar) with two California-era twists: a half-portion of fresh orange juice and vanilla syrup standing in for plain simple.³ Crediting source-culture lineage matters here: the daiquiri was Cuban before it was Hollywood, and what Crane sold as exotic was a Havana cocktail dressed up with vanilla and an orchid.

Brand recommendations. Best: Caña Brava, Havana Club Añejo Blanco (where legal), or Probitas for the white Cuban-style rum; Small Hand Foods or BG Reynolds vanilla syrup. Economical: Bacardi Superior, Don Q Cristal, or Plantation 3 Stars; homemade vanilla syrup (1:1 sugar and water with a split vanilla bean, simmered and cooled).

Instructions

In a shaker combine fresh lime juice, fresh orange juice, vanilla syrup, and white Cuban-style rum.
Add ice and shake until well chilled.
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with an edible orchid or a lime wheel.

Sources

Berry, Sippin' Safari (2017 ed.), Stephen Crane / Luau chapter, documents the 1953 Rodeo Drive Luau opening, Crane's biography (Columbia Pictures contract player, not MGM, and Lana Turner ex-husband), and the Luau's run as Beverly Hills' premier Polynesian Pop room into the 1970s. ↩
Berry, Sippin' Safari (2017 ed.), Crane recipe-decoding chapter, Berry's published account of the coded Crane logs and the decoding work that recovered Crane's specs, including the Luau Daiquiri. ↩
Curtis, And a Bottle of Rum (2006), Cuban daiquiri chapters; Berry, Potions of the Caribbean (2014), Floridita chapter, anchor the Cuban-roots framing: the daiquiri's Floridita-template rum-lime-sugar bones are Constantino Ribalaigua Vert's Havana original, and the Luau's vanilla and orange were California-era additions on top of an existing Cuban drink. ↩
"Luau Daiquiri." Imbibe Magazine. https://imbibemagazine.com/recipe/luau-daiquiri/ (accessed 2026-05-03), modern published spec from the Latitude 29 reconstruction; consistent with this file's measurement bill.