Long before tiki had a name for itself, Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt — reinvented as Donn Beach — was pouring a spiced rum drink at his original Hollywood restaurant under the name Pupule, Hawaiian for "crazy." He later renamed it Nui Nui, roughly "big" or "great" in Polynesian, and like most of his early recipes he mixed it from bottles labeled with code numbers — "Don's Mix #4," and so on — specifically so his own bartenders couldn't walk the formula out the door. The exact original was never written down in a form anyone outside his bar could read, and it stayed lost for decades until Jeff "Beachbum" Berry cracked enough of Beach's numbering system to publish a reconstruction in Sippin' Safari. Because it's a reconstruction rather than a recovered index card, the handful of versions in circulation today (via Berry, via bartender Andrew Bohrer's widely cited adaptation for Punch, and via Difford's Guide) differ slightly in proportion — this build sits in the middle of them.
Cinnamon, spice, and everything nice — with enough rum to make you forget the name ever changed.
A Secret Recipe, Renamed Once
Donn Beach ran his original Beachcomber's on secrecy as much as showmanship. Bartenders worked from code-numbered bottles of pre-batched syrups and spice blends, meaning even employees who mixed the drink nightly couldn't reproduce it elsewhere. The Pupule-to-Nui Nui rename happened within that same closed system — a menu decision, not a recipe change, though no source pins down exactly when the switch happened.
The drink's survival is owed entirely to later archival work. Jeff Berry spent years reverse-engineering Beach's numbering conventions from surviving invoices and staff interviews, publishing his best reconstruction of the Nui Nui in Sippin' Safari. It's since been adapted by working bartenders like Andrew Bohrer, whose version ran in Punch — evidence the drink earned a second life well past its original 1930s bar.
The Spec
A gold rum base carries two spice syrups — cinnamon and vanilla — plus a small pour of allspice dram, balanced against orange and lime for citrus snap.
Two spice syrups, not one
Cinnamon syrup carries most of the spice load; vanilla syrup rounds the edges rather than adding its own dominant note. Combine them into a single vanilla-cinnamon syrup if that's easier to keep on hand — the ratio holds either way.
Allspice dram over nutmeg
It's the smallest pour in the glass, but allspice dram (pimento liqueur) is what keeps the drink reading as tiki rather than mulled cider — swap it for grated nutmeg and the spice profile flattens fast.
Bottom Line
The Nui Nui is a good reminder that half of tiki's founding-era catalog only survives because someone later did detective work on a dead man's secrets. Drink it as what it is — a careful modern reconstruction of a recipe Donn Beach never meant anyone to have.