Riggs & Scout presents — Tiki & the Cove — Episode XIX — Candles on the Quicksilver Hill

Scout & Riggs presents

Riggs & Scout

TIKI & THE COVE

A Weekly Bulletin of Drinkable Adventure

Volume I Episode XIX November 4, 2026

"Candles on the Quicksilver Hill"

A Día de los Muertos Special from the Far West Texas

Editor's Dispatch

This extremely delayed edition is a love letter to Far West Texas. The world, and even Texans themselves, have a distinct, but largely inaccurate, picture of Texas in their mind's eye. A scene out of a spaghetti western. A steel eyed man glancing out at his adversary. Ready to clear his holster as soon as he sweeps his poncho over his shoulder. Shooting hand ready. Tumbleweeds rolling. Horses hitched, uneasily stamping and snorting. Big skies of pink at dusk. Searing sun at noon.

West Texas is kind of like that, but it isn't. Out there you'll find all types. The ones that want to be left alone. The ones who want to carve out their own visions. The ones craving big open skies, and minimal human interaction. Far West Texas is a way-off-the-beaten path paradise that I am not brave enough to visit in the summer time. But it hold a very special place in my heart. I proposed to the love of my life in Boquillas, the little town intermittently open across the river from Big Bend National Park. Accessible only by row boat. The actual inspiration for Robert Earl Keen's Gringo Honeymoon.

If you find yourself in crave of a small adventure, come check out Terlingua and Far West Texas during the Terlingua International Chili Cook-Off. You'll find great people, great music (Droptines and Alejandro Escovedo this year, along with mainstay and legend Gary P. Nunn!) and great vibes. There is likely a better word for it, but vibes will do for today.

Every year, at sunset on the second of November, the people of Terlingua walk up the hill to the old cemetery and light the dark. The Historic Terlingua Cemetery was established in 1902 and has more than five hundred graves and markers, many of them handmade and covered with rocks. By nightfall there are candles on nearly every one, marigolds around the altars, a bonfire going and a potluck underway. One resident describes it as not somber but appropriately respectful. This week the Cove sails inland, a long way from the water, to that hillside.

The graves belong largely to the families who worked the cinnabar mines. Miners came to the area in the 1880s, the Chisos Mining Company was founded in 1903, and by 1922 the town was producing about 40 percent of America's quicksilver. The mine went bankrupt in 1942 and the town emptied out, but the cemetery is still tended, and the tradition came with the families. We've built three drinks around it with Caribbean rum, a little Texas-desert agave and what's in the Cove's cupboard. Chapter I is a Daiquiri that tastes like pan de muerto. Chapter II is a rum-and-reposado Paloma the color of cinnabar. Chapter III is La Veladora, a votive candle you can drink. We're a few days past the holiday, but the candles last all week.

From the Field Notebook

Dispatches & Day Dreams From Far West Texas

A man and a woman dancing under a tin roof at night, lit in blue, with other dancers in cowboy hats behind them
A two-step under the tin roof, after dark
A woman in a white cowboy hat sings and plays guitar on a stage under a corrugated tin roof, with a guitarist on either side and the crowd in silhouette
Every night a new act
A woman lying on a striped serape bed in a vintage trailer, framed by American-flag curtains
Pour one out for El Cosmico, but stay for the Marfa Lights
Chapter I Easy — 5 min

Pan de Muerto Daiquiri

Barbados Rum, Lime and Licor 43 — Orange, Vanilla and Anise, in a Coupe

Pan de Muerto Daiquiri — Chilled Coupe

The Provisions

  • 2 oz Planteray Barbados 5 Year Rum
  • ¾ oz Licor 43
  • ⅝ oz fresh lime juice
  • 1 dash Angostura Aromatic Bitters

The Method

  1. Chill a coupe in the freezer while you work.
  2. Add the rum, Licor 43, lime juice and bitters to a shaker with ice.
  3. Shake hard for 12 seconds, until the tin frosts.
  4. Double-strain into the chilled coupe.
  5. Express a wide orange peel over the surface, rub it around the rim and drop it in or perch it on the edge.

Glassware & Garnish

Chilled coupe, served up. Garnish: a wide orange peel, expressed over the drink. Orange, vanilla and anise are the flavors of pan de muerto, the sweet bread that sits on the altar, and the Licor 43 and orange oils carry the same notes here.

The Legend

On the second of November, families in Mexico and across the borderlands put pan de muerto on the ofrenda, the altar for their dead, along with candles, marigolds and the favorite foods of the person being remembered. In Terlingua the altar stands at the cemetery entrance, with more altars inside for flowers and mementos, and the community eats together around a bonfire. This drink is our small ofrenda: a Daiquiri, the simplest structure in the Smuggler’s Cove book, with Licor 43 standing in for the bread. It’s an original riff in the craft tiki tradition. Source: the Daiquiri template from Martin Cate, Smuggler’s Cove (2016) and the Minimalist Tiki approach of Wonkpress; Día de los Muertos lore from the Terlingua cemetery tradition.

Smuggler’s Cove — Rum Classification
Planteray Barbados 5 Year is a Blended Aged Rum (SC #4). It's a blend of pot-still and column-still rum from the West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados, aged about five years in ex-bourbon barrels and finished in Cognac casks. In Cate’s 21-category system, Blended Aged rum sits between the heavy pot-still marks and the light column-still ones, which makes it a good all-purpose base for a Daiquiri. Licor 43 is a Spanish liqueur, so it falls outside the rum classification.
A man in a white cowboy hat and a woman in sunglasses stand in a green painted doorway under a sign reading Mexican liquors and cold beer, Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila, Mexico
Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila, Mexico. A painted doorway: “Mexican Liquors and Cold Beer”
— • • • —
Chapter II Medium — 10 min

The Cinnabar Paloma

Jamaican Pot Still, Reposado and Grapefruit — With a Red Campari Float for the Ore That Built the Town

The Cinnabar Paloma — Collins Glass

The Provisions

  • ¾ oz Hampden Estate Great House Rum
  • 1 oz Altos Olmeca Reposado Tequila
  • 1 oz fresh grapefruit juice
  • ½ oz fresh lime juice
  • ½ oz honey syrup (1:1 honey to hot water, cooled)
  • ¼ oz Campari, floated

The Method

  1. Add the rum, tequila, grapefruit juice, lime juice and honey syrup to a shaker with ice.
  2. Shake for 10 seconds, until well chilled.
  3. Strain into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice and pack more ice on top.
  4. Slowly pour the Campari over the back of a bar spoon so it floats and bleeds red through the ice.
  5. Garnish with a grapefruit wheel and add a straw.

Glassware & Garnish

Collins glass over crushed ice. Garnish: a grapefruit wheel on the rim. Don't stir after the Campari goes on. The red layer is the cinnabar showing through the rock.

The Legend

Terlingua exists because of cinnabar, the red ore that yields mercury, then called quicksilver. Miners arrived in the 1880s, Howard Perry founded the Chisos Mining Company in 1903, and by 1922 the district was producing about 40 percent of the quicksilver mined in the United States. Many of those miners were Mexican, and their families and descendants are buried in the cemetery on the hill. Cate’s Smuggler’s Cove (2016) teaches tiki as a craft of balancing rums, citrus and sweetener, and the same method works here: the Jamaican pot-still rum brings the funk, the reposado brings the desert, and grapefruit and honey tie them together in the manner of a Paloma. The Campari float is our nod to the ore. It's an original craft-tiki riff in the spirit of modern bars such as Lost Lake and False Idol. Source: Cate, Smuggler’s Cove; Terlingua mining history.

Smuggler’s Cove — Rum Classification
Hampden Estate Great House is a Pot Still Aged Rum. It's a high-ester Jamaican rum from a double-retort copper pot still, bottled at 57% ABV, and it belongs to the Pot Still meta-category in Cate’s 21-category system. Here it plays the supporting role: a funky rum lifting the agave rather than leading it. The Altos Reposado is tequila, so it is not a rum and sits outside the classification, and Campari is likewise an Italian amaro.
Two men sit on a boulder in a calm green river between tall canyon walls with their arms raised
Down on the river, where the canyon walls close in
— • • • —
Chapter III Showpiece — 15+ min

La Veladora

Demerara, Jamaican Pot Still, Reposado and a Flaming Lime-Shell Votive — Coffee, Allspice and Marigold Orange

La Veladora — Calavera Mug

The Provisions

  • 1 oz El Dorado 12 Year Demerara Rum
  • ½ oz Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaica Rum
  • ½ oz Altos Olmeca Reposado Tequila
  • ¾ oz fresh lime juice
  • ½ oz fresh orange juice
  • ½ oz Café del Fuego coffee liqueur
  • ¼ oz honey syrup (1:1 honey to hot water, cooled)
  • ¼ oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
  • 2 dashes Bittermens Tiki Bitters, 1 dash Angostura
  • ½ oz Lemon Hart 151 Overproof Rum, for the flaming float
  • 6 oz crushed ice

The Method

  1. Chill a mug in the freezer. A skull or calavera mug is ideal, but any tiki mug or large double old-fashioned glass will do.
  2. Juice a lime and save one half-shell, squeezed out and hollow, for the votive.
  3. Add the two rums, the tequila, lime juice, orange juice, coffee liqueur, honey syrup, allspice dram and both bitters to a blender cup with the crushed ice.
  4. Flash-blend for 5 seconds. It should be cold and aerated, not a slushy.
  5. Pour everything into the chilled mug and pack extra crushed ice on top into a dome.
  6. Nestle the lime half-shell, cut side up, into the ice. Fill it with the Lemon Hart 151.
  7. Away from anything flammable, light the 151 with a long match. Carry it to the table lit, blow it out before drinking and never drink with the flame burning.

Glassware & Garnish

A calavera or tiki mug, with crushed ice dome. Garnish: the flaming lime-shell votive, plus an orange wheel notched on the rim for the marigold. A real candle on the table next to it makes the point.

The Legend

A veladora is a votive candle, the kind that families set on graves and altars on the night of the second of November. In the Terlingua cemetery, children run among the graves lighting candles on every one they can find, and by dark more than four hundred graves are glowing. This drink is built around that image. Demerara rum supplies the darkness, the Jamaican pot-still rum brings the funk of old mine-camp liquor, reposado adds the desert, and coffee, allspice and orange give it the warmth of café de olla and marigold. The flaming lime shell is a long-standing showpiece device in the Beachcomber tradition that Cate’s Smuggler’s Cove (2016) and Beachbum Berry’s books document. The recipe is an original in the style of modern craft tiki bars such as Smuggler’s Cove San Francisco and Hale Pele. Source: Cate, Smuggler’s Cove; Berry, Remixed; Terlingua cemetery tradition.

Smuggler’s Cove — Rum Classification
This drink uses three rums from three different categories in Cate’s 21-category system. El Dorado 12 Year is a Column Still Aged Rum (SC #6), a Demerara blend with toffee and dried-fruit depth. Smith & Cross is a Pot Still Aged Rum, a heavy Jamaican pot-still rum at 57% ABV. Lemon Hart 151 is a Black Blended Overproof Rum (SC #7), a Guyanese blend at 75.5% ABV, and it fuels the flame. The Altos Reposado is tequila and the Café del Fuego and allspice dram are liqueurs, so they sit outside the rum classification.
A small adobe chapel at night under a moonlit sky of rippled clouds, with a single lit doorway and a figure in a cowboy hat sitting on the steps
Under the Dark Skies
— • • • —

End of Episode XIX

The candles are burning low, the bonfire is embers and the hill is quiet again. Thank you for climbing it with us. Raise a glass to everyone who;s left this world for the next.

Next week, Episode XX. We leave the desert and head back to open water. Expect something bright, cold and a long way from the cemetery.

A Riggs & Scout publication