The St. Stephen's Sour is a modern tiki-bar sour with an unusually clean paper trail: it was built in 2014 by Jeffrey Morgenthaler at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon, and first published that July/August in a feature in Imbibe Magazine. Rather than lean on rum alone, Morgenthaler split the base evenly between an aged rum and cognac, then balanced the pair with fresh lemon juice and a generous pour of orgeat — an architecture closer to Don the Beachcomber's old rum-and-brandy bowl drinks than to the fruit-punch style most modern tiki menus reach for. The drink doubles as a teaching example: Morgenthaler has pointed to it on his own site as the test case for making crushed ice at home in a food processor, since it's meant to be built and served over a full glass of crushed ice rather than shaken and strained clean. Difford's Guide, Summit Sips, and several other bar sites have since reprinted it, all crediting Morgenthaler and Clyde Common by name, so this isn't a case of a single directory listing standing alone.
A common household food processor makes quick work of turning frozen cubes into snowy peaks of crushed ice for serving our boozy, tiki-inspired St. Steven's Sour.
Jeffrey MorgenthalerA Modern Classic With a Paper Trail
Most "new tiki" drinks that show up in Difford's directory arrive with no real history attached — a bar posts a recipe, other sites copy it, and the trail ends there. The St. Stephen's Sour is the exception. It has a named creator, a named bar, a publication date, and a magazine feature to back it up, and every source that reprints it agrees on those basics, even when they disagree slightly on the orgeat pour.
Morgenthaler was already known for treating ice as a technical variable rather than an afterthought, and this drink shows that thinking: instead of a quick shake-and-strain sour, it's built to be sipped slowly over a full glass of crushed ice, the dilution working continuously rather than arriving all at once in the shaker.
The Spec
The build is simple and doesn't hide behind a long ingredient list: equal parts aged rum and cognac for the base, a matching lemon-and-orgeat pair to sour and sweeten it, all shaken to chill and then strained over crushed ice.
Two spirits, one register
Aged rum brings the funk and molasses weight tiki drinkers expect; cognac adds a drier, dried-fruit-and-oak note instead of doubling down on more rum. Original write-ups call for a Trinidad-style aged rum, but any solid mid-weight aged rum works — the point is that neither spirit is meant to dominate.
A full pour of orgeat
The Imbibe original and most reprints pour orgeat at 3/4 oz, level with the lemon — generous for a sour, and what gives this drink its nutty, almost-dessert richness. Difford's Guide's own listing trims it to 1/2 oz for a drier pour; both are defensible, but this build follows the heavier original ratio.
Why crushed ice, not a clean strain
Morgenthaler serves this one built over crushed ice, more like a small Swizzle than a strained-up sour, and has used it specifically to demonstrate that a food processor can replace a mallet and canvas bag for home bartenders who want real crushed ice. Skipping the crushed ice and serving it up in a coupe isn't wrong, but it changes the drink Morgenthaler actually designed.
Bottom Line
The St. Stephen's Sour earns its spot in Difford's tiki directory on more than just a listing — a real bartender, a real bar, and a decade of consistent reprints back it up. Two spirits, two modifiers, built over crushed ice: it's a short recipe that rewards taking its ice instructions seriously.