Rum

Montego Bay

Name: Montego Bay
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Double Old-Fashioned

Donn Beach's 1940s Jamaican-themed cousin to the Navy Grog, pot-still rum, honey, grapefruit, and a whisper of allspice and Pernod.

rum tiki jamaican caribbean mid-century blended lime grapefruit

Ingredients

honey mix (0.5 oz)
fresh lime juice (0.5 oz)
fresh white grapefruit juice (0.5 oz)
Pernod (6 drops)
Angostura bitters (1 dash)
pimento dram (0.25 tsp)
aged pot-still Jamaican rum (1.5 oz)
crushed ice (0.5 cup)
mint sprig (1)

Montego Bay names a Jamaican port, and the drink is Donn Beach's tribute to Jamaica¹, but the Jamaican rum tradition Donn was drawing on long predates Don the Beachcomber. Pot-still rum production at Worthy Park, Hampden Estate, Long Pond, and Appleton Estate dates to the 17th and 18th centuries; the Jamaican planter's punch ("one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak") was a fixture of West Indian hospitality before any American tiki bar existed.² Shannon Mustipher in Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails frames this clearly: when Donn reached for funky, ester-heavy pot-still Jamaican rum, he was sourcing from a Caribbean tradition with deeper roots than the Polynesian Pop scenography around it.³ Structurally Montego Bay is a sibling of the Navy Grog and Zombie, honey mix, fresh citrus, dark Jamaican rum, plus dashes of Angostura, Pernod, and pimento dram for spice complexity. Make the honey mix first as a 1:1 honey-and-warm-water dilution.

Brand recommendations. Best: Smith & Cross, Hamilton Pot Still Black, or Worthy Park 109 for the aged pot-still Jamaican rum; St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram for the pimento liqueur; Pernod Anise. Economical: Appleton Estate 8 or Coruba Dark for the Jamaican; BG Reynolds Allspice; Herbsaint or Absente in place of Pernod. Use raw clover or wildflower honey, not buckwheat (too dominant).

Instructions

First make honey mix by stirring 1 part raw honey with 1 part warm water until fully dissolved.
In a blender combine fresh lime juice, fresh white grapefruit juice, the honey mix, Pernod, Angostura bitters, pimento dram, and aged pot-still Jamaican rum.
Add crushed ice and flash-blend at high speed for .
Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass.
Garnish with a mint sprig.

Sources

Berry, Sippin' Safari (2017 ed.), Donn Beach catalog chapters, documents Montego Bay as a Donn-era Don the Beachcomber drink in the Jamaican-tribute family alongside Navy Grog and the Zombie variants. ↩
Curtis, And a Bottle of Rum (2006), planter's-punch and Jamaican-rum chapters, traces the West Indian planter's-punch template ("one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak") that underlies the Donn-era Jamaican drinks. ↩
Mustipher, Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails (2019), Jamaican rum chapter, frames Donn's reach for funky pot-still Jamaican rum as drawing on a Caribbean tradition that predates American tiki. ↩
"Montego Bay." Kindred Cocktails. https://kindredcocktails.com/cocktail/montego-bay (accessed 2026-05-03), modern published spec consistent with this file's measurements; references the Berry / Beachbum Berry Remixed lineage.