Unlike the handful of tiki drinks that trace straight back to Donn Beach or Trader Vic, the Ancient Mariner has no single documented inventor or founding bar. The name nods to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" — a sailor cursed to wander the seas — and the drink shows up across modern tiki-bar menus as a vehicle for navy-strength rum, without a fixed recipe or a credited creator. Treat this build as a defensible modern take on the name, not a restoration.
Water, water, everywhere — this is not that drink.
A Name Borrowed from a Poem
Coleridge's mariner is a figure of consequence and slow-burning dread, and modern tiki bars have leaned on that mood rather than any specific recipe when naming a drink after him. No cocktail-history source ties the name to a particular bar's opening menu or a named bartender — it reads as a title that got attached, independently, to more than one navy-rum drink over the past couple of decades.
What's consistent across the versions that do exist is the use of a high-proof, dark rum as the backbone — a nod to the British Navy's own overproof rum ration, and the closest thing the name has to a real historical anchor.
The Spec
A navy-strength dark rum sour: overproof rum for weight, lime for snap, falernum for its clove-and-ginger spice, and a short pour of syrup and bitters to round the edges.
Why navy-strength, specifically
A 57%+ ABV rum is what keeps this from reading as just another rum sour — it's meant to taste like it could survive a sea voyage. A standard 40% dark rum will make a fine drink, but a noticeably gentler one; if that's what's on hand, treat the falernum pour as the flavor lead instead of an accent.
Falernum over orgeat
Falernum's lime-and-clove spice reads darker and more maritime than orgeat's almond sweetness, which is why it fits this drink's mood better than the more common tiki syrup.
Bottom Line
No lost recipe to chase here — just an honestly modern name for an honestly strong drink. Build it for someone who wants their tiki with the volume turned up.