The Firecracker is a spice-forward coupe drink built on pisco and mezcal rather than the rum most tiki drinks reach for — it lands in Difford's Guide's tiki/tropical directory on flavor (pineapple, lime, allspice) more than on any inherited rum pedigree. It comes out of Macao Trading Co., the Tribeca bar Dushan Zaric and the Employees Only team opened in 2008, where a version of it sat on the menu credited by Difford's Guide to house bartender Ivan Radulovic. Agave syrup and pineapple juice soften pisco's brandy snap and mezcal's smoke, while allspice dram and a cinnamon-sugar rim push the whole thing toward baking-spice territory — hence the name. It's a useful reminder that a "tiki" directory listing is a flavor lineage, not a rum-only rulebook.
Spice on the rim, smoke in the glass, and not a drop of rum anywhere in it.
A Tribeca Bar, Not a Beach Bar
Macao Trading Co. opened in Tribeca in 2008, the second room from the Employees Only team — Dushan Zaric, Jason Kosmas, Igor Hadzismajlovic, and partners — done up as a Portuguese-Chinese trading-post fantasy with a basement speakeasy underneath. Independent cocktail-history sources trace the Firecracker's authorship to Zaric at Employees Only before it found a home on Macao's menu; Difford's Guide, meanwhile, credits its own listed recipe as "adapted from a recipe by Ivan Radulovic" at Macao itself. Both point to the same real address and the same real bar family — this isn't a drink invented by a directory.
What it isn't is rum-based, which sets it apart from most of Difford's tiki/tropical list. The pineapple, lime, and cinnamon-sugar rim earn it the category; the base spirits — pisco and a mezcal liqueur — are pure early-2010s craft-bar thinking, borrowed from South America and Oaxaca instead of the Caribbean.
The Spec
Everything goes in the shaker together, gets shaken hard and cold, and is fine-strained into a chilled, cinnamon-sugar-rimmed coupe with no ice in the glass — so the rim carries the spice instead of diluting it into the liquid.
Two agave-and-desert spirits, two different jobs
Pisco is the dry, floral, grape-brandy backbone. Crema de Mezcal — a lightly sweetened mezcal liqueur rather than a full-proof mezcal — rounds that off with campfire smoke without dragging the ABV or the smoke level past what the fruit and spice can carry.
Allspice dram earns the name
St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram brings the clove-cinnamon-nutmeg register that the cinnamon-sugar rim alone can't fake, which is why the drink reads as genuinely spiced rather than just tart and tropical.
Bottom Line
Real bar, real bartenders, a real 2008 Tribeca address — just don't go looking for a decades-old rum pedigree here. The Firecracker earns its spot in the tiki/tropical directory on pineapple, spice, and a good cinnamon-sugar rim, not on inherited Beachcomber-era rum lineage.