For decades, anyone trying to recreate the legendary cocktails of Don the Beachcomber ran into the same dead end: the mysterious numbered ingredients. Jeff “Beachbum” Berry uncovered the recipes, but not the secrets behind cryptic labels like “#4” or “Don’s Spices.” Even Donn’s own bartenders could only guess, using substitutes to approximate the originals.

Those secrets stayed buried for nearly 90 years.

That changed when I discovered that Donn sourced these ingredients from the Lancaster Company in Fontana, California—sold under the name Astra Flavors. The numbers weren’t codes at all; they were simply item numbers from a bakery supply catalog. This insight came from Bob Van Dorpe, the former purchasing agent for Don the Beachcomber Chicago and later the man who helped open the Mai‑Kai in 1956. He had quietly cracked the system and used it to supply Mariano Licudine, Donn’s famed mixologist.

When I received Donn’s personal archive from his widow Phoebe, the final pieces fell into place. Inside were notes, clues, and order sheets detailing the Lancaster Company flavorings. No full recipes—just enough breadcrumbs to follow. Using those documents and the Mai‑Kai’s surviving versions as benchmarks, I rebuilt what I believe are the lost mixers of Don the Beachcomber.

The greatest mystery of all was #4, the essential ingredient in the original 1934 Zombie. Jeff Berry had been told to substitute white grapefruit juice and cinnamon syrup, but Donn’s archive revealed that cinnamon was actually #8—a completely different Astra Flavor. With this new information, I recreated #4 as faithfully as possible.

Now, for the first time since the golden age of tiki, you can taste the Zombie the way Donn intended.

These mixers aren’t approximations. They’re the closest you can get to the real thing without stepping into a Don the Beachcomber before it closed in 1989.

Bring the lost flavors of tiki history back to your glass.

Coming in Spring via BG Reynolds