Rum

Nui Nui

Name: Nui Nui
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Chimney

Donn Beach's 1937 spiced rum sour, decoded by Beachbum Berry from the original Don the Beachcomber notebooks.

rum tiki classic mid-century blended lime cinnamon allspice

Ingredients

vanilla syrup
allspice dram
fresh lime juice (0.5 oz)
fresh orange juice (0.5 oz)
cinnamon syrup (0.25 oz)
Angostura bitters (1 dash)
amber Virgin Islands rum (2 oz)
crushed ice (0.5 cup)
cinnamon stick (1)
orange twist (1)

Donn Beach hid his recipes from his own staff behind labeled tincture bottles, "Don's Mix," "Don's Spices #1," "Don's Spices #2", so Hollywood bartenders could pour his drinks without knowing what was in them.¹ Jeff "Beachbum" Berry spent years tracking down Donn's original notebooks via the Dick Santiago, Hank Riddle, and Tony Ramos lineages, and the Nui Nui is one of the recoveries he published in Sippin' Safari (2007).¹ Berry decoded "Don's Spices #2" as a 1:1 mix of vanilla syrup and St. Elizabeth-style allspice dram, the spice profile that gives the Nui Nui its baking-spice depth on top of the rum-and-citrus base.² Donn first listed the drink as "Pupule" (Hawaiian for "crazy") and later renamed it Nui Nui ("big" or "great" in Hawaiian).¹

Brand recommendations. Best: Cruzan Estate Diamond or Plantation Original Dark for the amber Virgin Islands rum; Small Hand Foods or BG Reynolds cinnamon syrup; St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram and Liber & Co. vanilla syrup for the Don's Spices #2 sub-recipe. Economical: Cruzan Aged Dark; BG Reynolds cinnamon syrup; Hamilton Pimento Liqueur and Monin vanilla syrup for the spice mix.

Instructions

First make Don's Spices 2 by combining equal parts vanilla syrup and allspice dram; reserve.
In a blender combine fresh lime juice, fresh orange juice, cinnamon syrup, Don's Spices 2, Angostura bitters, and amber Virgin Islands rum.
Add crushed ice and flash blend for .
Pour unstrained into a chimney glass or tall tiki glass with additional crushed ice.
Garnish with a cinnamon stick and an orange twist.

Sources

Berry, Sippin' Safari (2017 ed.), Nui Nui chapter, documents the Don the Beachcomber labeled-tincture system, the Santiago / Riddle / Ramos notebook-recovery lineage, the Pupule-to-Nui-Nui renaming, and the decoded Don's Spices #2 (vanilla + allspice dram). ↩
Beachbum Berry / Imbibe, "Don the Beachcomber's Nui Nui Cocktail." https://imbibemagazine.com/recipe/don-the-beachcombers-nui-nui-cocktail/ (accessed 2026-05-03), the published spec this file follows, including the Don's Spices #2 sub-recipe and the flash-blend method. ↩