Royal Hawaiian

Lime and pineapple both push tropical, and together they tip the glass toward punch. Lemon is flatter and more neutral, so it sharpens the fruit without adding to it, and it sits better under juniper. Swap to lime and you will want the orgeat cut to 5 ml to keep things dry.

A juniper-forward London dry. Pineapple and orgeat are both loud and sweet, and a soft contemporary gin disappears underneath them completely. Beefeater or Tanqueray keeps a spine in the drink. A floral, cucumber-led bottle leaves you with something closer to fruit punch.

Not really. Tiki runs on rum, layered syrups and crushed ice, while this is a gin sour that happens to use pineapple. It shares the orgeat and the fruit, which is why it lands on tiki menus often enough, but it's built like a Savoy-era cocktail.

A classic Royal Hawaiian calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Gin, 30 ml (1 oz) Pineapple juice, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Fresh lemon juice, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Orgeat syrup. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Royal Hawaiian is roughly 18% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it about as strong as a glass of wine.

A Royal Hawaiian is shaken — the rule of thumb is to shake anything with citrus juice. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.

Serve a Royal Hawaiian in a chilled coupe glass, well chilled — this drink is served without ice, so a cold glass keeps it cold.