Clinton Cawood tells us the story of a classic cocktail which was created in the 1960s and unearthered in 2010.
There’s more to tiki than rum-based drinks, believe it or not. Not much, admittedly, but the canon of classic tiki cocktails does occasionally venture beyond cane-based spirits.
In modern times, tiki is having what many argue is an overdue rethink about its sources of inspiration, and the way it uses these. But back in its heyday, in 1967 to be precise, legendary Californian bartender J ‘Popo’ Galsini was otherwise occupied winning the International Bartender’s Association World Cocktail Championship with his gin-based tiki creation.
Beyond its unconventional choice of base spirit, The Saturn couldn’t be more stereotypically tiki if it tried. It combines both falernum and orgeat, some passion fruit syrup for good measure, and lemon juice, blended with ice and usually garnished with a lime twist wrapped around a cherry to represent the planet for which it’s named.
Despite The Saturn’s initial acclaim, it might have been lost to history if it weren’t for its inclusion in Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry’s 2010 book Beachbum Berry Remixed.
In it, Berry tells the story of the drink’s original name, The X-15, after a jet designed by some of Galsini’s regulars, engineers at Douglas Aircraft. After a test pilot died in an X-15 crash, Galsini changed the name.