Most tiki drinks reach for rum out of habit; the Poison Dart was built to argue against that habit. Portland bartender Craig "Colonel Tiki" Hermann created it in 2010 to show that tiki's spice-and-citrus architecture holds up just as well around bourbon, trading rum's sweetness for Cynar's bitter artichoke snap and building the exotic warmth from cinnamon syrup and allspice (pimento) dram instead of falernum or grenadine. The name nods to its garnish — an orange twist traditionally skewered on a dart-shaped cocktail pick rather than dropped loose in the glass. Hermann posted the recipe on his own Colonel Tiki blog, and it's since been logged independently, with the same 2010 date and attribution intact, by Difford's Guide and Kindred Cocktails — a rare tiki-directory entry with a name, a date, and an actual paper trail.
You don't need rum to make tiki.
Craig "Colonel Tiki" HermannA Bourbon Bartender's Rebuttal
Hermann isn't an anonymous forum handle attached to a recipe card — he's a longtime figure in both the craft-cocktail and Polynesian-pop communities, a co-founder of the Tiki Kon home-bar weekender in Portland, and a contributor whose recipes have shown up in Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's Remixed and in Mixology magazine. The Poison Dart was his answer to a specific gap: tiki bars built almost entirely around rum, even though the genre's real trademark is a layered mix of spice, citrus, and orgeat-style sweetness that doesn't actually require sugarcane spirit to work.
So he kept the tiki grammar — orgeat, citrus, a spiced syrup, a dash of allspice dram — and rewired the base spirit and the bittering agent. Bourbon stands in for rum; Cynar, an Italian artichoke amaro, stands in for the usual falernum or curaçao float. The result reads as unmistakably tiki despite never touching a rum bottle.
The Spec
This follows Hermann's original build: stirred and double-strained up into a chilled cocktail glass, not the shaken-and-on-the-rocks service some directories list as an adaptation. Two ounces of bourbon carries the drink; everything else is there to season it.
Cynar instead of a second rum
Where a rum-based tiki drink might layer in a demerara float or a curaçao rinse, the Poison Dart uses Cynar's bittersweet, artichoke-and-herb profile to do the same structural job — adding depth and a bitter edge rather than more sugar. A quarter ounce is enough to season the bourbon without turning the drink into an amaro cocktail.
Cinnamon syrup and allspice dram, not simple and grenadine
Swapping in a spiced syrup and a dash of allspice (pimento) dram shifts the drink's sweetness toward baking spice instead of fruit, which is what keeps it reading as autumnal and bourbon-forward rather than like a rum punch with brown spirit subbed in.
Stirred and up, not shaken on the rocks
Difford's Guide lists a shaken, over-ice version of this recipe, but Hermann's original call was to stir and double-strain into a coupe. With a two-ounce spirit base and only small pours of juice and syrup, stirring keeps the drink cleaner and more spirit-forward, closer to how he first served it.
Bottom Line
The Poison Dart earns its place in tiki's spice-forward, non-rum minority — a bourbon drink that borrows the genre's ornament and structure without pretending to be something it isn't.