How do you make a Zombie?  That was the question posed to me and the genesis for my current mission.  Believe it or not there are many answers to that question depending on who asks it.  For example, if you were asked by George Romero (famous creator of the “Living Dead” movies) you might say you need radiation from an exploded space probe on a return trip from Venus to create an army of ambling corpses that want to feast on human brains.  If you were to be asked by a random politician your answer might be that an 18 month campaign of fear and disinformation would be enough to turn a population of free thinking people into an unquestioning hoard of the authority following undead.  But I was asked by none other than Donn Beach and that means that he wants to know how to make a cocktail!

I’m not going to lie, it’s a daunting task to assemble all of the ingredients required to make a Zombie.  After all, it needs to shatter the perception that all tropical drinks are over sweet and under proofed while simultaneously being well balanced and delicious.  That’s why it relies on three rums, fruit juices, syrups, Absinth and the one last balancing ingredient that I was attempting to secure … Bitters!

That brings us to where I am now.  On the island of Trinidad and Tobago breaking in to the House of Angostura in order to get two small bottles of their super secret bitters formula.  The elixir is so potent that one generous dash is all that is required to properly serve the needs of the Zombie.

I managed to sneak in after nightfall and dispatch a few guards on route to the bottling room and after defeating some electronic security measures I finally had two bottles of the murky potion in hand.  Working my way up to the roof, I only had to cross the catwalk (yeah, the catwalk) past the fermentation vats and I was free.  Of course, nothing is ever that easy.  Standing directly between me and the outer fence was an agent from B.A.C.A.R.D.I. and he looked bent on keeping me from returning my prize to the Beachcomber.  I had to think fast!

As the agent opened his mouth to utter some evil doer phraseology intended to make me question my abilities, I hurled one of the bitters bottles in my hand directly at the orifice.  It lodge in his mouth and he was so caught off guard by the site of an oversized paper label jutting out of his pie hole that he stumbled backward off the catwalk and into an open dunder pit below, never to be seen again.

As I sprinted past the site of his demise I muttered under my breath, “Now that’s a bitter pill to swallow!”, then exited the facility and returned the final ingredient for the Zombie to Don the Beachcomber.