It’s spooky season here at Stately Monkey Manor. The jack o’ lanterns are smiling from the porches and various corners of the house and all of our skeletons have exited the closet and are proudly on display as we celebrate the turning of the seasons on our descent into the holidays. After a week of rain and gloom, the sun is shining through the gloriously colorful fall foliage and you can taste the coming joys of fall in the air. As our calendars begin to fill with parties, parades, plays and travel of the season it is particularly nice to find myself at home this morning with little to do except figure out who I want to dress up as tonight and what I want to be if I ever grow up. So with a nod toward the years that have come before and a brave look forward to the memories not yet made, won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Bad Apple.

Today we are delving into the most classic form of Tiki style, with a definite Autumn twist. This drink has little to no provenance as it comes to us from somewhere deep in my mind. It is certainly inspired by the season, an urge for something comforting and a particularly nice tiki mug I acquired at Wusong Road in Boston a couple of weeks ago. It has six different alcohols, too many ingredients, too many touches and is an absolute celebration of the excess of the harvest. So, let’s get into it and see how things turn out.

I always try to share what alcohol I used, but don’t specify the need to use that brand unless there is a particular flavor profile I am looking for. In this drink, the specifics matter. Each was carefully chosen for some interesting aspect in flavor or texture and, as you will see, they are mostly unusual examples in their category. Also, this was created for big, old tiki-style mugs, so if you are serving in something more sedentary either half the recipe or pour two drinks. That said, grab your tins and toss in 1 ounce of Charanda Uruapan Añejo rum, 1/2 an ounce of Smith + Cross Jamaican Rum, 1/2 an ounce of St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, 1/2 an ounce of Maggie’s Farm Falernum, 1/4 ounce of Heirloom Pineapple Amaro, 1/4 ounce of Liquore Strega. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? To all that alcohol add 2 ounces of apple cider, 1 ounce of pineapple juice, 1/2 an ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice, 3 drops of Bittermen’s Elmekalule Tiki Bitters and 2 drops of Tropi-500 Bitters from Crude Bitter Company. Toss in some of that artisanal pebble ice from Sonic and give it a good whip shake to the beat of Foy Vance and Ed Sheeran singing “Guiding Light”, cause we all need to get home, sometimes. Don’t go too hard here, we are just going for a quick mix, not chill or dilution. Dirty dump the drink, ice and all into a suitable container and top with more pebble ice before garnishing with some fresh slapped mint, a crown of dried pineapple and maybe a pine cone and a feather on a pick, before popping in a cool straw with a built-in umbrella, if you go in for that sort of thing. Serve with grace and humility, reminding your guests to enjoy this and every other thing, responsibly.

Well, damn. That works. That works so hard. This drink gets up before dawn and heads into the mines to put in a double shift before walking home to plow the garden by moonlight and finishes playing the fiddle on the porch to lull the valley to sleep. Yeah, it’s that good. Sometimes you get lucky and all the work and knowledge come together for you. This is everything I love about tiki with all the flair of a late October day at the orchard. Subtle flavors vying for attention in a perfectly balanced little sip of heaven. The apple and pineapple are ever present, but subdued, with a strong rum backbone from the banana funk of the Smith+ Cross and the unique agricole vegetal beginning of the Uruapan followed by its signature molasses finish. The allspice dram and falernum bring interest with definite tropical and autumn flavors complimenting each other, backed up by the slight bitter herbal vanilla, mint thing from the Liquore Strega, finished with a hint of bitterness from the Pineapple amaro. It starts sweet, familiar and comforting and ends bittersweet with a want for more, like most of my relationships and I simply love that. This drink absolutely delivers on every count and you will never ever find it on a bar menu, because it is too much trouble, and that is ok. Somethings are meant as a special treat for yourself. Cherish those things.

I debated on what to call this one. I thought about “Too Much Trouble” or something like “Forbidden Fruit” or “In the Garden”, but those all evoke something not quite right for this one. The mug made me think about Dorothy and “Those Apples” but I do worry that it would bring the apple too far forward in the mind, because even though we have 2 ounces of cider in there, it is a supporting player. On the other hand, I got the mug in Cambridge, just off Harvard’s campus so, “Them Apples” would work as well, but that’s kind of a deep cut. A deep cut I will always believe in my heart was penned by Kevin Smith. Anyway, I am a strong believer that a thing should be what it says it is, so if the drink has apple in the title, it better feature that/them/those apples right up front, which this drink does not. The apple is there, but it is hiding behind all those other complimentary flavors. It’s a Bad Apple.

Just like an ostensibly good apple, a bad apple does not fall far from the tree. Unlike that good apple though, it is said that a bad apple will spoil the bunch. I get it, from an apple storage point of view; rot spreads, but that is more subject to chemistry and proximity than choice. Not so for people, we get to choose who we associate with, what we will accept from our peers and who we will be, if we have the courage to do so. Still, we see those bad apples, the one’s who push the boundaries, make us feel uncomfortable and in many ways, give us permission to be weak by example. Individual humans are mostly amazing. Take the most boring, uninteresting person you can imagine and if you spend the time to get beyond the veneer and learn about them you will almost always find an incredible story of love and loss and a struggle to find their place in the world. Take that same amazing human and put them with a bunch of other amazing humans and they being to lose that individuality as they go from being a person to being one of the people and people, mostly, suck.

We don’t mean to, it is just easy to find that group identity and we are social creatures, we want to fit in. The key is to remember who you are; to be decent, even when those around you celebrate callousness. The world can be a confusing place, full of terrors, and not just the kinds we enjoy on Halloween. So, as you go about this evening, dressed in your finery, enjoy the joy of trick or treating from both sides of that door. Celebrate how good it feels to give freely and the blessing of being able to receive those gifts with humility and grace. This is us at our best. Tomorrow, as the imaginary haunts fade and the real fears of our daily lives come back to the forefront, go with that same spirit. Give freely to those who have needs and be open to accepting the help offered to you. In spite of what the world and the algorithms want you to believe, there is no them, only us; and we are all in this together. So, be a good apple and a blessing on the rest of the bunch, as we all try to stay safe, stay sane and stay hydrated, my friends.