Lost Lake Cocktail Recipe: A Passionfruit Tiki Drink

In me and my wife’s Top 100 Bar Quest, there’s one ingredient that is a surefire order every time: passionfruit.

If we see a drink on the menu that has passionfruit in it, we always order it.

In fact, I still remember the first passionfruit drink we ever had.

We’d been out and about in London, and decided since we were in the area, to go waltz into the Connaught Bar for the first time.

If you’ve never been to Connaught before, picture the fanciest bar you’ve ever been in. Then double the fancy-ness, and you have Connaught.

While I opted for their staple martini, Tate ordered a passionfruit drink that we still regard to this day as one of the best drinks we’ve had on the quest.

Now despite our love for the exotic, tart fruit, we’d never actually made any passionfruit drinks at home until recently.

To be honest, it was mostly because we weren’t exactly sure how to go about making passionfruit drinks. When you could find them at the store, they were obscenely expensive, and I truly didn’t realize passionfruit puree was actually a thing.

So last week, I picked up some Funkin Passionfruit Puree off Amazon – and let me tell you, it’s been everything I imagined it would be. It’s delicious, convenient, and well, kind of expensive – but at least it has the first two going for it.

I originally bought it to make my first cocktail out of the Zero Cocktail Book, and then naturally began thinking about all of the wonderful creations I could use it for.

Enter the Lost Lake Cocktail

Have you ever noticed when you don’t have an ingredient, it seems like every drink you want to make uses it? But then when you finally get it, you can’t come up with any ideas?

That was me with passionfruit.

So after making the Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich from Aviary’s book, I turned to my trusty friend Google and simply searched “best passionfruit cocktails.”

The very first drink I came across was a tiki drink known as a Lost Lake.

I was immediately intrigued. But not necessarily because of the drink itself.

Lost Lake is a Chicago tiki bar that has been on my radar for years. I’ve been to Chicago staple Violet Hour 2 or 3 times, but that’s the extent of my experience with the Chicago cocktail scene.

Lost Lake has been off and on the top 100 list for the last couple of years, so naturally it’s been high on my list of places to visit.

One of the goals I have with this site that hasn’t quite materialized as of yet, is to share recipes from some of the best bars in the world that we’ve visited in our travels.

So while I haven’t been to Lost Lake yet, I was personally very excited to give this drink a shot.

Fortunately upon finding it I had all the ingredients, so immediately I set out to make it.

How to Make the Lost Lake Cocktail

The Lost Lake is the signature drink of the bar, and is actually very easy to make – assuming you have the ingredients.

One of the things I liked about this drink is that with the exception of the passionfruit, it didn’t have much in the way of truly obscure ingredients.

Sure the average person may not have Jamaican rum, maraschino liqueur, or Campari – but those are common enough that if you’re even a little bit of a hobbyist you might have them on the shelf.

Ok ok, maybe this isn’t quite as simple as a vodka soda – but for tiki drinks, it isn’t too bad.

A Lost Lake cocktail consists of:

• 2oz Jamaican Rum (I was out of Smith and Cross, so used Doctor Bird)
• .75oz Passionfruit Puree
• .75oz lime juice
• .5oz pineapple juice
• .25oz Campari
• .25oz Maraschino Liqueur

Simply add all to a shaker, shake, and strain over crushed ice.

As with many passionfruit heavy drinks, it has a beautiful orange color to it, and I’m happy to report it lives up to my expectations.

It’s one of those drinks where if you look for any particular ingredient, you can find it. Which is saying a lot considering there are some pretty strong flavors in this drink.

It was a bit more tart than I was expecting, so be aware of that when making it. But the funky Jamaican rum tastes great with the passionfruit, and the Campari gives it a subtle bitter finish that I personally really like.

If you’re looking for a summer staple cocktail to make for guests, you could do a lot worse than the Lost Lake.

Now I just can’t wait to put this COVID stuff behind us, so that I can actually fly out to Chicago and try one for myself.