Poi is a drink that is made when you are short on all of your existing booze in your bar. You basically don't have enough of one thing to make a drink or several drinks, but if you combine them all together, you get a very potent potable.

There is some logic that goes with making Poi, but not much. You want it to be drinkable. This isn't Fear Factor. But that's where logic ends.

Poi is usually made by college students with little or no money and no desire or way to purchase a new bottle of booze, so they improvise.

--A Poi Example
I was at a friend's apartment in college and they didn't have any beer and only had a few bottles of booze lying around, but they were almost empty (Vodka, Tequila, Sloe Gin, Southern Comfort and Creme de Menthe) and a full bottle of Grand Marnier orange liqueur. They also had a couple of cans of fruit cocktail.

So into the wooden salad bowl goes the near empty bottles of booze. Add to that a good amount of Grand Marnier, but not alot. This is where the logic comes in as too much of that would make the bowl undrinkable. Next we opened a can of fruit cocktail and emptied that into the bowl. It was stirred with a wooden spoon and then passed around to drink out of.

Before each sip, you were supposed to say a blessing "To the Poi Gods." There was no ice, it was nice and neat, unless one of the liquors was already cold (i.e. vodka in the freezer). Not only do you bless the Poi Gods, but you most likely will be praying to the Porcelein one as well.

The one nice thing about Poi is that you don't do it that often, and when you do it, it will most likely be different each time. If you find a combination that is particularly good, write it down and you may have just invented a new cocktail. Enjoy.