Fassionola Red Redux [Total Tiki]

Also known as “Fassionola Red Redux”. Fassionola is an extinct brand of tropical fruit syrup that came in three flavors: Gold, Green, and Red. The Bum found a dusty old bottle of Fassionola Gold in in a San Marino, California, liquor store back in the mid-1990s. It was a thicker, more orangey version of Trader Vic's passion fruit syrup. The Bum wrote to the address on the bottle expecting no answer, but to his surprise the company (long since out of business) replied with the attached brochure, which describes Fassionola Green as lime-flavored and Red as “reminiscent of rich, red cherries.” New research by San Fransisco Bay Area tikiphile Wit Ashbrook belies this. Wit points to today’s Hawaiian Punch as having the same DNA as Fassionola Red, which evolved from an earlier tropical fruit syrup called Passionola that was originally marketed as an ice cream sundae topping. Wit’s well-documented conclusion: “Passionola, as originally marketed in 1931, likely inspired Hawaiian Punch in 1934, and later provided the model / template for Fassionola as well.” With the help of Wit’s thorough and extensive detective work, the Bum used the ingredients of Hawaiian Punch as the jumping-off point for his 2023 resurrection of Fassionola Red. Use the recipe above in any vintage recipe that calls for Fassionola; although few of them specified “Red,” as a mixed-tropical fruit syrup it was the most versatile and heavily used of the three flavors, and its ruby color also signaled its deployment in such Fassionola-based classics as the Hurricane and Cherry Blossom Punch. ======== 2 oz passion fruit puree 2 oz guava puree 8 oz organic cane sugar 8 oz pomegranate syrup 1 oz papaya juice (see note below) 1/2 oz unsweetened pineapple juice Put passion fruit puree, guava puree, and sugar in a saucepan. Heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly (do not boil), then remove from heat. To the resulting passion-guava syrup, stir in pomegranate syrup, papaya juice, and pineapple juice. Thoroughly combine and let cool, then bottle it and store in fridge for up to three days. Yields a little over one pint. ======== Papaya juice: Do not use the papaya juice blends made by Langer Farms, Ceres, L&A, and other brands, which are cut with apple juice and will kill your syrup. Canned papaya nectar is mostly sugar and water, and will also wreak havoc. It’s best to juice fresh papaya or use defrosted frozen papaya pulp (such as Goya’s) by pressing the diced fruit through a fine-mesh steel strainer.