The Uncharted Cookbook

Official blog for the unofficial Uncharted Cookbook. Food and drink inspired by the characters, locations, and treasures of the Uncharted franchise.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Descendant

Demerara rum, pisco, cachaça, pineapple juice, lemon juice, lime juice, honey syrup, grenadine, and a dash of bitters

"No, they weren't zombies. They were people, or they used to be."

Nathan Drake pulled out his journal and flipped to a page labeled Scare O' Meter. He turned it to me and pointed to a drawing right between a "demon sasquatch" and Sully's mustache: a crudely sketched rendition of a terrifying creature hunched over and baring sharp teeth, aptly labeled "slippery naked guy."

He explained that the legendary El Dorado wasn't a city of gold at all, it was a golden sarcophagus. Whoever was buried inside had some kind of viral infection that changed people, mutated them into terrible, rage-filled monsters. This mummy was worshipped for its great "power" and sealed in gold inside a place of reverence. Spanish conquistadors found El Dorado in the heart of the Amazon in the 16th century and stole it away, bringing it halfway across the Pacific Ocean to an uncharted island as far away from civilization as possible. They paid greatly for their theft. The sarcophagus was opened and the Spaniards were infected, mutating into creatures no longer human. Over the past 400 years, with each new generation born, the descendants of those Spaniards devolved further away from humanity.

A shudder ran through me as Nate finished his tale. El Dorado is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean now, hopefully lost forever. But the descendants... they're still out there, somewhere.

Naturally, the Descendant is a riff on the infamous and dangerously delicious Zombie cocktail. The Zombie was invented by Donn Beach in 1934 and was an immediate sensation, jumpstarting the tiki craze of the 1930s. Its original recipe was a closely guarded secret until relatively recently which forced imitators to improvise, often to disastrous results. The Descendant is based primarily on the midcentury Zombie recipe written by Donn for Louis Spievak's 1950 book Barbecue Chef. Three different South American spirits are used in the Descendant to showcase El Dorado's Amazonian roots: Demerara rum from Guyana, pisco from Peru, and cachaça from Brazil.

DESCENDANT

Ingredients: 1 oz. aged Demerara rum (El Dorado 12) 1 oz. Peruvian pisco (Barsol) 1 oz. cachaça (Novo Fogo) 1 oz. pineapple juice 1 oz. lemon juice 1 oz. lime juice 0.5 oz. honey syrup 0.25 oz. grenadine 1 dash Angostura bitters Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and dump directly into a Zombie or chimney glass. Garnish with fresh mint, slapped to express the oils.

As always, the types of spirits you use are important for the flavor profile of the cocktail. For the aged Demerara rum, I use El Dorado aged 12 years but Pusser's British Navy Rum, Hamilton 86, or other aged El Dorado rums will serve just as well.

A Peruvian pisco is preferred over a Chilean one. Each country has specific requirements for pisco production and distillation. Chilean piscos are often distilled multiple times and then watered down to proof while Peruvian piscos are bottled directly from the still. This means Peruvian piscos often have more depth and flavor than their Chilean counterparts. However, if you find the flavor of Peruvian pisco too potent, a Chilean pisco may suit your taste better. If you'd like other uses for pisco, I recommend a pisco sour.

For cachaça, my number one recommendation is the fantastic brand Novo Fogo. Their Silver cachaça is what I use and is the easiest to get your hands on, but I wouldn't hesitate to try the Chameleon or Barrel-Aged expressions if you can find them. Not only does Novo Fogo make delicious spirits, but they operate the Un-endangered Forest Project and are dedicated to rehabilitating the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, which has been decimated by deforestation.

As mentioned previously, store bought grenadine will be much more syrupy and sweet than making your own, so homemade is recommended. It's a fast and easy process and all you need is pomegranate juice and sugar (although pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water help provide more depth and texture). If you do use store bought grenadine, adjust the amount of honey syrup you use to balance out the sweetness.

The Descendant uses honey syrup and grenadine in place of the Demerara syrup and passionfruit syrup (or fassionola) used in the midcentury Zombie recipe. I chose these ingredients for the Descendant because they taste great, they can be found in other recipes in the Uncharted Cookbook, and they're more readily available and easily made. However, if you have Demerara syrup or fassionola on hand, feel free to swap those in instead and see which you prefer.

The recipes for honey syrup and grenadine can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Cintamani Sap

Gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice, honey syrup, ghee butter, and blue food coloring

Nathan Drake raced a madman and his entire army to the steps of Shambhala.

I couldn't believe it when I first heard the story. And who could blame me? Especially because Victor Sullivan was the first person I heard it from. But Chloe Frazer did corroborate it and eventually Nathan Drake himself showed up at my bar with a small jar full of blue resin to prove it. He said what he had was all that was left of the mythical Cintamani Stone. Don't tell Nate, but I may have "accidentally" spilled them across the bar and pocketed one of the small blue pebbles in the chaos. Lucky I did too. I had no idea at the time, but that little bit of resin eventually saved my life.

According to legend, the Cintamani Stone was a jewel that would give its wielder great power and grant their every wish, but in reality it wasn't a stone at all. It was actually a massive piece of amber from the Tree of Life, hidden at the center of the lost city of Shambhala. The tree possessed incredible medicinal properties, like aloe vera, arnica, calendula, willow bark, yarrow, and other healing plants but on a much greater scale. When you consume the sap from the Tree of Life, your natural healing rapidly accelerates and you gain boundless energy. It can even halt aging. But over time, too much of the sap changes you. It stains your skin blue and your teeth black, and it gets inside your mind. You become dependent on it, a Guardian dedicated to protecting Shambhala and the source of the sap at all costs.

The Cintamani Sap cocktail is my attempt to capture the energizing and refreshing nature of the Tree of Life. Gin was chosen as the base because the prominent juniper flavor provides a piney, resinous taste. Ghee butter adds texture and flavor and harkens to butter tea, a popular drink in the Himalayas and surrounding regions. The honey syrup, in addition to sweetening the cocktail, thickens it slightly for a more sap-like consistency and a drop of blue food coloring gives the perfect color to match the Cintamani Stone.

CINTAMANI SAP

Ingredients: 2 oz. gin 1 oz. dry curaçao (orange liqueur) 0.75 oz. lemon juice 0.75 oz. honey syrup 0.25 oz. ghee butter 1 drop blue food coloring Melt the ghee butter on a spoon over a flame or in a microwave. Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and strain through a fine mesh strainer onto fresh ice in a Mai Tai or double Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with a blue rock candy stick and an orange slice or peel.

I originally made the Cintamani Sap with a London Dry gin, specifically Bombay Sapphire, but it works wonderfully with a more citrus forward gin like Plymouth as well. Some of the ghee butter solidifies as you shake the drink so straining with a fine mesh strainer is important. The butter adds to the taste and texture of the drink, but there shouldn't be big butter flakes in it.

For the orange liqueur, I strongly recommend Pierre Ferrand's Dry Curaçao. As a replacement, Grand Marnier or other decent brandy based orange liqueurs would be fine. You could use blue curaçao which would also eliminate the need for the food coloring, but most commercially available blue curaçaos (and cheap orange liqueurs in general) are sickly sweet. If you use one, I would probably adjust the amount of honey syrup down to balance out the extra sweetness you'd get.

The recipe for honey syrup can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Strange Fruit Juice

Non-alcoholic; POG juice, mango juice, lime juice, grenadine, and bitters

Bandicoots are small omnivorous marsupials native to Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the surrounding Pacific islands. They have long thin snouts and sharp claws they use to forage for underground insects and larvae. In addition, they eat lizards, mice, snails, fungi, grass seeds, berries, and fruit.

As hard as it is to believe, bandicoots are not bright orange and usually don't wear jean shorts and sneakers. But that fact couldn't stop Crash Bandicoot from becoming an icon as one of the earliest PlayStation mascots. Genetically altered by the nefarious Dr. Neo Cortex, Crash ran, slid, and spun through a series of adventures on the Wumpa Islands, an archipelago named for the strange fruit that grows there.

The Crash Bandicoot games are not only personal favorites of mine, but also some of Elena Fisher's favorites as well. This love and appreciation for old school gaming is something Elena passed down to her and Nate's daughter, Cassie. When I heard that Cassie had finally beaten her mom's high score on Crash Bandicoot, I knew I had to whip up something special for her to celebrate. The Strange Fruit Juice is a non-alcoholic cocktail to be enjoyed by gamers of all ages, meant to answer the question we've all been wondering for decades: "What would wumpa fruit juice taste like?"

STRANGE FRUIT JUICE

Ingredients: 2 oz POG juice 1.5 oz mango juice 0.5 oz lime juice 0.25 oz grenadine 1 dash Angostura bitters Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and dump directly into a snifter or other similarly sized glass. Garnish with fresh mint, slapped to express the oils.

POG juice is a blend of passionfruit, orange, and guava juices originally created and produced on Maui, Hawaii. If you can't find a commercially available POG blend, you can make your own by combining those three juices in equal parts. For an individual drink, use 0.66 oz of each. You can also use fruit nectars in place of the juices, but they will often be sweeter.

Like most bitters, Angostura is actually alcoholic and has an ABV comparable to many spirits. Because of the incredibly small amount used, the total ABV of Strange Fruit Juice is well under 0.5%, below the legal limit for non-alcoholic beverages in many countries and not enough to have any intoxicating effects, even after multiple drinks. However, there are non-alcoholic bitters available on the market if you would like to completely avoid alcohol for whatever reason.

Store bought grenadine will be much more syrupy and sickly sweet than making your own so I absolutely recommend homemade if possible. Making grenadine is fast and easy and, even if you only use the pomegranate juice and sugar and skip the pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water, you'll still wind up with a much better end result.

The recipe for grenadine can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

As Above, So Below

Gin, lemon juice, Earl Grey syrup, club soda, and butterfly pea flower tea

Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius, et quod inferius est sicut quod est superius.

Alchemy was always about more than just turning lead into gold. It was a spiritual quest for cosmic understanding and ultimate truth, and with that knowledge would come power and immortality. John Dee, an alchemist, occultist, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, dedicated his life to this very pursuit. His cause persisted beyond his death, carried on by the Order, a Hermetic secret society created by the Queen and dedicated to uncovering the mysteries and powers of the occult.

Four hundred years later, the Order was led by Katherine Marlowe and her right-hand man Talbot, no last name given in true secret society manner. The two were on the hunt for the mythical city of Ubar, a place that former Order member Sir Francis Drake had lied about finding, fearing its power falling into the wrong hands. Both Marlowe and Talbot perished as Ubar was destroyed, Nathan Drake's luck striking again. In the end, I'd say those two got exactly what they deserved.

As Above, So Below is alchemy in a glass, a cocktail that literally transforms before your eyes. The drink begins as a golden elixir before butterfly pea flower tea is added. The deep blue butterfly pea flower tea immediately turns a vivid purple when it reaches the acidic lemon juice in the drink and the colors of the cocktail are split in two: purple above and gold below. With a stir, the two worlds combine and the final transformation occurs. Just like magic.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

Butterfly Pea Flower Tea ingredients: 1 cup of water 20-30 butterfly pea flower leaves Cocktail Ingredients: 2.5 oz gin 0.75 oz lemon juice 1.5 oz. Earl Grey syrup 2 oz. club soda 0.75 oz. butterfly pea flower tea To make the butterfly pea flower tea, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Remove the water from heat and add 20-30 butterfly pea flowers to it. The more tea leaves you use, the more concentrated and colorful the tea will be. Cover and let steep for at least 10 minutes. Strain out the butterfly pea flowers and dry them for later use as a garnish. Let the tea cool before bottling. To make As Above, So Below, first pour the club soda into a Zombie or chimney glass. Combine the gin, lemon juice, and Earl Grey syrup with pebble ice or crushed ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and dump directly into the glass. Top the glass with more ice, packed tightly, and then float the butterfly pea flower tea on top. Slowly stir to watch the magic happen, and then garnish with dried butterfly pea flowers.

Much like rum, each gin is going to have its own distinct flavor. All gins contain juniper but what other botanicals are used and to what degree is going to vary wildly from gin to gin. To represent the Order's English roots, I used a London Dry gin, specifically Bombay Sapphire. Tanqueray and Beefeater gins also fall into this category. If you want to lean more into a citrusy flavor, Plymouth is a great choice as well.

Butterfly pea flower leaves can usually be found in tea or spice shops or similar locations, or special ordered online. When the pH balance of the butterfly pea flower tea is altered, it changes color hence why the tea is added separately.

To make the drink less sweet or more tart, you can adjust the amount of Earl Grey syrup or lemon juice to taste.

The recipe for Earl Grey syrup can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Avery's Grand Punch

Barbadan rum, red wine, lime juice, and Earl Grey syrup

I had thought Nathan Drake was out of the game for good, but I should have known better.

I had just been getting back into the swing of things after my recovery when Nate stopped by the bar for the first time in years with yet another impossible story. I had a death-defying tale of my own for him, but it didn't exactly involve finding another legendary city lost to history. This time, Nathan Drake had uncovered Libertalia, a pirate utopia nestled off the coast of Madagascar, a place that people have been searching for since Captain Charles Johnson published A General History of the Pyrates in 1724. He pulled a gold coin from his pocket and told me a tale of pirates and puzzles, the return of lost family and old rivals, and of the fine line between passion and obsession.

Libertalia was founded by Henry Avery, Thomas Tew, and ten other pirate captains as a way to achieve true freedom for themselves and their crews, far away from the governments that would have them hanged for piracy. Their resources and spoils were pooled together and an idyllic colony was built. But greed led the founders to betray their community and hoard all of the wealth for themselves. Libertalia was broken. As the founders began to turn on each other, Avery and Tew hatched a plan to end the conflict permanently. They brought all of the founders of Libertalia together under the guise of peace talks, knowing that only they would walk out alive. With one final toast, ten of history's greatest pirates unknowingly drank their demise and perished in an instant, all at the same table.

Avery's Grand Punch is a red wine rum punch inspired by the romanticism of piracy and the promises of Libertalia. Pirates would typically drink whatever they could get their hands on but wine and rum were some of the most prevalent drinks in the Caribbean, where most of Libertalia's pirate captains roamed before turning their sails to Madagascar. Historically, much like today, rum was often cut with lime juice, sugar, and spices to improve the taste. Red wine was chosen to round out this punch as a representation of the opulence of Libertalia's founders. Avery's Grand Punch is a potent drink fit for a pirate captain, just be sure to drink it in good company.

AVERY'S GRAND PUNCH

Ingredients: 1.5 oz moderately aged Barbadan rum (Plantation Barbados 5) 0.5 oz light-bodied red wine 0.5 oz lime juice 0.25 oz Earl Grey syrup Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and strain into a wine glass. Garnish with an orange peel to help prevent scurvy.

Avery's Grand Punch calls for a moderately aged Barbadan rum. These rums are typically aged between 4-10 years and often have a golden hue. I used Plantation Barbados 5 for this recipe, but Real McCoy 5 Year, Mount Gay Eclipse, or other moderately aged Barbadan rums are all effective substitutes. I chose a light-bodied red wine because because their higher acidity plays well with the lime juice and their lower tannins and alcohol content help compliment the rum rather than overpower it.

Depending on your personal taste, you may wish to increase or decrease the amount of lime juice and Earl Grey syrup to adjust the sour and sweet flavors.

The recipe for Earl Grey syrup can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Cargo Pilot

Jamaican rum, Demerara rum, lime, grapefruit, spices, honey, bitters, and a hint of absinthe

Victor Sullivan is a man of passion and taste. The only thing he loves more than stiff drinks, expensive cigars, and beautiful women is telling stories about them. From the very first moment he stepped into my bar, he was chatting up anyone and everyone he could find and sharing tales of his many escapades all around the world, each more climactic than the last.

While hearing about barmaids and brothels was certainly exciting, what captivated me was the sheer breadth of his adventures. Sully has been everywhere and rubbed shoulders with everyone, carving out his living hauling freight around the globe in the Hog Wild, his trusty Grumman Goose G-21 seaplane. Unfortunately, the Hog didn't survive one of Sully's most dangerous expeditions down in the South Pacific, but Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher have since paid him back for crashing his plane with a replacement. I suggested Sully name his new Goose the Whole Hog, to keep with the theme.

The Cargo Pilot was born from a desire to create a cocktail as well traveled as Victor Sullivan himself. It's a riff on the Test Pilot, a drink originally created sometime before 1941 by Donn Beach, the founding father of tiki and a man also famous for his intrepid nature.

CARGO PILOT

Ingredients: 1.25 oz overproof white Jamaican rum (Wray & Nephew) 1 oz aged Demerara rum (El Dorado 12) 0.75 oz lime juice 0.5 oz white grapefruit juice 0.5 oz treasure spice syrup 1 tsp honey syrup 1 dash Angostura bitters 6 drops absinthe Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and dump directly into a Mai Tai or double Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with fresh mint (slapped to express the oils), a cherry on a pick, and a paper or foam airplane.

The Cargo Pilot calls for two specific types of rum: an unaged overproof white Jamaican rum and an aged Demerara rum. For the Jamaican, I recommend Wray & Nephew but Rum Fire will do in a pinch. For the Demerara, I use El Dorado aged 12 years but Pusser's British Navy Rum, Hamilton 86, or other aged El Dorado rums will serve just as well. The types of rum are deliberately chosen for the flavors they bring so be careful and do research before making substitutions. A white Jamaican rum and a white Puerto Rican or Dominican rum are going to taste vastly different, for example.

Similarly, if you use a pink or ruby red grapefruit juice instead of white grapefruit, you'll wind up with a sweeter drink. It may be worth it to adjust the amount of treasure syrup or honey to account for this.

The recipes for treasure spice syrup and honey syrup can be found here.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Making Syrups

A syrup is a thick, sweet liquid made by boiling sugar in water, often with other ingredients for flavoring. Making your own syrups is one of the easiest and most delicious ways to elevate your cocktail and cooking skills and open yourself up to entirely new worlds of flavor.

Below the cut is a collection of recipes for every syrup used in the Uncharted Cookbook, as well as links to the drinks and dishes they're used in. This post will be continuously updated as more and more recipes are added.

EARL GREY SYRUP

Ingredients: 4 teabags (or 4 tsp if loose) Earl Grey tea 1 cup water 1 cup sugar (demerara or turbinado) Boil 1 cup of water, then steep the Earl Grey tea in it for 10 minutes. Remove teabags or strain out tea leaves. Pour tea into a saucepan with the sugar. Heat and stir until completely mixed. Remove from heat and let cool before bottling. Used in: As Above, So Below, Avery's Grand Punch

GRENADINE

Ingredients: 1 cup pomegranate juice 1 cup sugar 0.5 oz pomegranate molasses 1 dash orange blossom water Heat the pomegranate juice and sugar in a saucepan and stir until completely mixed. Remove from heat, add orange blossom water and pomegranate molasses, and let cool before bottling. Used in: The Descendant, Solomon's Brass Bowl, Strange Fruit Juice

HONEY SYRUP

Ingredients: 1 cup honey 1 cup water Heat honey and water in a saucepan and stir until completely mixed. Remove from heat and let cool before bottling. Used in: Cargo Pilot, Cintamani Sap, The Descendant

TREASURE SPICED SYRUP

Ingredients: 1 cinnamon stick 1 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp vanilla extract) 15 whole cloves 5 whole allspice berries 1/8 tsp nutmeg 2 pinches fennel seed 1 whole cardamom pod, crushed 1 cup sugar 1 cup water Place all ingredients in saucepan and heat. Bring to a boil and then drop to low heat and cover, allowing it to simmer for at least 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Strain out spices before bottling. Used in: Cargo Pilot, Propane Tank

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Adventure.

That was always the point, after all. I never had much luck as a treasure hunter though. Not the kind like Nathan Drake or Charlie Cutter anyway and, believe me, I tried. I spent more than a few fruitless years digging around old tombs and following ancient maps while searching for mythical lost cities but I never had more to show for it than scrapes, bruises, and an empty wallet. After a less-than-brief stint behind bars in Cambodia when a job went south, I knew something had to change. With a little bit of coin I had squirreled away and a sizable loan from one Gabriel Roman, I found myself behind an entirely different type of bar, the kind that serves food and drink.

Over the years, I've mixed drinks for thieves with hearts of gold, conmen with silver tongues, criminals as bold as brass, and far more that have tested my mettle. I've listened as they've told fantastic tales of traveling around the world, uncovering ancient mysteries, and risking life and limb for a little fortune and glory. The recipes that you're about to read are my tributes to those tales of adventure, romance, and danger, and to those who told them. They're a way for me to immerse myself in those escapades, preserve those stories, and pass along those experiences to others in the best way I know how.

Each recipe seeks to capture the essence of a person, a place, a moment, or a priceless treasure. They all include specific instructions, ingredients with recommendations, and a little relevant history. I hope that the foods and drinks you find here teach you something, take you to places you've never been, and lead you to unforgettable adventures of your own.

As always, Sic Parvis Magna.

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

OOC: For Dragon Con this year, I made some cocktails and mocktails in small 2 oz. glass jars, and carried them around the convention in a cooler. Whenever someone recognized my Nathan Drake cosplays, I offered them a drink and one of these recipe cards to go along with it so they know exactly what they were drinking and can make it at home if they wanted to.

I'll be posting the recipes for the treasure syrup, honey syrup, and grenadine soon, as well as more recipes for more drinks and even food, and then bits of lore and stories to go along with each of them. Please enjoy these for now!