Snake Eyes is a modern craft-tiki cocktail created in 2021 by Ally Marrone, then head bartender, and Robby Dow, then beverage director, at Grand Army bar in Brooklyn, New York. The drink takes a Caribbean pairing with real tiki-adjacent pedigree — blended Scotch and coconut — and swaps in smoky mezcal for the whisky, then rounds it out with a spoonful of banana liqueur, coconut water instead of coconut cream, and a salt rim. It's a well-documented modern original: the recipe is corroborated across Difford's Guide, Grand Army's own social media, and independent cocktail sites, all crediting the same two bartenders and bar.
Mezcal works in tropical/Tiki cocktails.
Difford's GuideA Brooklyn Bar's Take on an Old Pairing
Blended Scotch and coconut is a real, if under-sung, combination from the Caribbean cocktail tradition — nutty, slightly smoky whisky sitting well against coconut's richness. Marrone and Dow built Snake Eyes by keeping that basic logic (a smoky spirit plus coconut) but swapping in mezcal, which brings its own, more assertive smoke than a blended Scotch ever could, then leaning the drink tropical with banana liqueur, cane syrup, and lime.
Because this is a recent, named bar creation rather than a mid-century recipe, its documentation looks different from a Don the Beachcomber original: no Beachbum Berry archival citation, but multiple independent sources — Grand Army's own menu and social accounts, Difford's Guide, and other cocktail sites — agree on the same two creators, the same bar, and the same year, which is about as solid as sourcing gets for a drink this young.
The Spec
Espadín mezcal forms the smoky base, cut with coconut water rather than coconut cream for a lighter, less syrupy tropical drink, sweetened with cane syrup and a small spoon of banana liqueur, sharpened with fresh lime, and served with a salt rim.
Coconut water, not coconut cream
Most tiki drinks reach for coconut cream for richness and sweetness. Coconut water keeps Snake Eyes lighter and more savory, letting the mezcal's smoke stay upfront instead of getting buried under a thick, sweet base.
A whisper of banana, not an ounce
The banana liqueur is measured in sixths of an ounce, not a standard pour — enough to register as a background sweetness against the coconut, not enough to turn the drink into a banana cocktail.
Bottom Line
Snake Eyes is a clean example of how contemporary craft bars keep expanding tiki's base-spirit vocabulary — proof mezcal's smoke belongs next to coconut and lime just as comfortably as rum ever did.