July 14, 2026 • 21 mins
How did flight delays lead to the invention of Irish coffee? Do you need a screwdriver to make an authentic screwdriver? And who the heck is Tom Collins, anyway? We hope you're thirsty, because Will and Mango have whipped up 9 cocktail facts that you can enjoy shaken or stirred.
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This episode originally aired on December 6, 2018.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Guess what mango? What's that?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Will?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right? So I was in a restaurant the other night.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I was looking at the menu, and for some reason,
I started thinking about all the names that were on
the cocktail list there. I was kind of bored, to
be honest with you, So I started thinking about these things.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I saw Irish coffee.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
On the list, and then I was even more bored.
So I started to wonder a little bit more about this,
and I was trying to think through like whether that's offensive,
you know, like you pour a little whiskey into a
hot coffee and then suddenly it's Irish for some reason.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, I mean I feel like cocktail names are so weird, right,
Like white Russians had nothing to do with Russia or
Mikyle Berushnikoff.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I mean they do have Vodkin in my guess, and
it's the same with black Russians, like that was invented
in Belgium apparently.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
So the weird thing is that Gabe was looking into
this and the name Irish whiskey was actually a point
of pride for the man who coined it. So the
guy's name was Joe Sheridan and he was the chef
at an airport restaurant and the port of coins over
in Ireland.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So that's kind of funny it was invented in an airport.
But what's the story there? All right?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
This goes back to nineteen forty three, and I guess
at the time there was this extremely rough winter storm
going on, so planes are getting grounded and you know,
passengers are stuck inside there. So Joe basically takes pity
on the exhausted passengers and he offers them this mix
of hot coffee and Irish whiskey, kind of as a
way to help them warm up. And so one American
(01:20):
passenger inquires about this and he asked, you know, have
we just been served Brazilian coffee? Well Joe shakes his head,
of course, and he said, no, serf, that's Irish.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Coffee you're drinking.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Oh that's clever.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, if you glad I spared you the Irish accent there.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
All right.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So a few weeks later, Chef Joe just convinced the
restaurant owner there to add his Irish coffee to the menu,
and passengers there and Foins and beyond have been enjoying
it ever since. So that's just the first of nine
facts about cocktails that will dig into today.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof booth
trying to make himself.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
A poose cafe. Yeah, it's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You know. These are these gorgeous drinks because they look
kind of like a rainbow and glass. It's like super
alcoholic and they're layered, but each sip is a little
bit different, and the drink is to make sure it
all sip's good.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think that's what Tristan was trying to do, but
it kind of came out tam so he just poured
it out and made himself a Zemo with a little
red skittle at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
But I think that's a less savvy cocktail, to be
honest with it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Which is amazing that Tristan found a bottle of zema.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Can't they make that anymore?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
They defind out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I am excited to talk about cocktails because the first
one is something I've had questions about forever, and that's
a Tom Collins so the question everyone asks is who
exactly was Tom Collins? And you and I are not
the first person to wonder about this, And in fact,
in nineteenth century New York, asking folks if they knew
Tom Collins was some people's favorite pastime. So the way
it worked was that a stranger would come up to
(03:12):
you in the street or whatever, and they'd tell you that, like,
twenty minutes earlier, they saw Tom Collins trash talking you.
And they say this to like anyone who'd listened, right,
he was like talking about your clothes, your weak work ethic,
the fact that you can't go left on a basketball court. Whatever,
that's true. And so you get all confused and flustered
because you don't really know anyone named Tom Collins, and
(03:34):
who is this guy to slander you? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you asked the stranger where he saw Tom Collins last,
and he directs you towards the local pub.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Ah, I see, right, So it's.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Like this genius marketing trick. So a few minutes later,
you storm into the bar demand to see Tom Collins,
at which point the bartender nods silently, fixes you a drink,
and he hands you with Tom Collins, which I guess
is old Tom Gin lemon juice and sugar topped off
with carbonated water. Thing is right, you get to meet
Tom Collins. So it's like a cute little trick and
(04:04):
it's a nice story. And according to saucy dot com,
which is a beverage site, the Tom Collins was a
product of a nineteenth century prank for people with way
too much time on their hands, and of course the
bartender was actually in on the joke. Some people have
suggested that the entire hoax was concocted by bar owners
as a way to sell more drinks, and that the
strangers on the street were actually on the bar's payrolls.
But either way, what we got on the end was
(04:26):
this tasty summary drink, which is way better than any
bar fight.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's pretty cool. I'd actually wondered that one as well.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
All right, Well, another name I've been thinking about recently
is the Screwdriver, which is a very simple cocktail. It's
just one part vodka and one part orange juice.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Of course, yeah, I mean, isn't it funny that something
that simple has a name instead of just like vodka
with orange And the fact that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
A Greyhound is vodka with grapefruit juice too, but supposedly
that got its name from being served at the restaurant
attached at a Greyhound bus station.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I guess that's super weird.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I feel like I've never heard Paul Simon sing about that.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, I me a little bit of questioning, you know,
the veracity of all of these, But the screwdriver has
a better story than this. So obviously Americans like their vodka,
and in fact, it's actually the best selling liquor in
the country accounting for it's something like a third of
all liquors sold last year and more than six billion
dollars in sales.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And of course making screwdrivers, as we said, is super simple.
But if you want to stay true to the drink's roots,
then you actually want to use a real screwdriver. And
that's because the drink is said to have been invented
by American oil workers who were stationed in the Persian Gulf.
And this was back in the forties.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's finny, you know. I've obviously had that drink, but
I never think it's that old.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, So the workers decided to make the work day
a little bit more interesting by secretly adding vodka to
their morning oj and because they didn't have any spoons handy,
they stirred the drink with their screwdrivers instead, and before
long the men started referring to the drink as a
screwdriver now, you know, partially because it was just a
fun way to talk about drinking around your bosses, like,
you know, this job sure would be a little easier
(05:59):
with a screwdriver.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, I mean, having murky origin stories is kind of
like a running theme with famous cocktails, and the Long
Island Iced Tea is no exception. So a lot of
people say the drink was first mixed during Prohibition as
a way to disguise a drink as plain tea, and
others say the drink was created in the nineteen seventies
and this contest sponsored by Triple Sack. So I've actually
seen a video of the guy nicknamed Rosebud who supposedly
(06:22):
invented it in the seventies, and he's just throwing this
like equal parts of vodka, jin Rom tequila and Triple
Sick into a blender and a little bit of cola.
And it's not like the super neat mixology video because
he makes kind of a mess with a blender and everything.
But you know, apparently he dubbed it a Long Islandized
tea because of where his bar was located. But what's
(06:43):
incredible to me, and this is all Gabe doing the
research here, is that New York isn't the only Long
Island to lay claim to this drink. Tennessee also has
a Long Island of its own, and it's right in
the middle of the Holston River near the town of Kingsport. So,
according to the town, long Islandized Tea was actually the
creation of this local bootlegger there. His name was Charlie
Oldman Bishop and old Man Bishop. One day, suppose they
(07:05):
got a little creative. He took vodka, gin whiskey tequila
and mixed them together with maple syrup. And then in
the nineteen forties, this son Ransom perfected the recipe by
adding a little bit of citrus juice and a little
cola to the mix. And as you can imagine, the
two Long Islands are at odds over who came up
with this disgusting drink first. I mean, they even compete
(07:25):
in this thing called Battle for the Tea, where they
blindfolded bar patrons and gave them each of the region's
teas and everyone voted for their favorite, but unfortunately they
made it a best of two match, so both Long
Islands have actually won one round each and there's no
third round schedules.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sounds like they'd had a few of them before they
came up with that idea for a best of two.
I also feel like we should grab a few folks
from the Savor team and have a little office test
and kind of choose for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
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Speaker 3 (10:38):
All right, well, speaking of murky origins, why don't we
talk about the Cosmopolitan, which claims two stories of its own,
actually none of.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Which I'm guessing have to do with sex and the city.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Well, here's the weird thing is that one of them
actually does.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So. One option is that the drink got its start
in the mid nineteen eighties at a bar in Miami
South Beach. So, according to legend, a woman named Cheryl
Cook invented it, and it was supposed to be like
a more feminine take on the Martini because she'd noticed
that many women seem to enjoy the shape of the
classic Martini glass more than the taste of the actual drink.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
That it came with.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
So here's where the Sex and the City connection comes in.
Cook claims that the show's mother daughter costume design team
had been customers at her bar for like fifteen years
before the show started, so the inclusion of the Cosmo
and the show might have actually been a fun nod
to Cook.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh, that's interesting, and the show actually did revitalize the
cocktail from what I know. I mean kind of the
same way Sideways got people to stop drinking Merlow Yeah,
or the.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Way you know, everybody started drinking white Russians right after
The Big Lebowski. There's actually another great story that could
also be the starting point for the Cosmopolitan as well.
So according to an African American bartender named Neil Murray,
he invented the drink back in nineteen seventy five, and
this was as a way of asserting himself at the
bar that was under racist management at the time. Now,
(11:54):
the story goes that Murray had interviewed to be a
bartender at the Cork and Cleaver bar in Minneapolis earlier
than year, but despite having a pretty good interview, he
was actually later told by a friend that the managers
passed on him simply because he was black. Still, the
staff was on Murray's side, so when management went away
for the weekend, the staff slip trained him over the
course of three days and put him on the payroll.
(12:17):
Then the managers agreed to try him out once they returned.
But here's the backstory to the drink. So one night
not too long after, Murray was mixing up a popular
cocktail called the Kama Kazi when he decided to add
a splash of cranberry juice to the mix. Now, the
customer loved the extra fruity punch and asked Murray what
had inspired him to add it, and Murray just said
it just felt like it needed a little color. So
(12:39):
the customer responds that it looks very cosmopolitan, and that's
how the drink actually got its name. But the funniest
part is that Murray says he started ordering the drink
and every town he passed through after that, So he
would go to a bar and order a Cosmopolitan, and
when they'd asked him to remind him what it was,
Murray would tell them that it was a kama Kazi
with cranberry juice. So bartender suggested the drink to customers,
(13:02):
and the drink gradually spread from coast to coast.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
On This American Life where Sarah Kannig is talking about
her dad, who's this legendary admin. He wrote the old Volkswagen,
think small ad and lemonads, and he's, you know, kind
of known as a genius. But he also makes these
outrageous claims, Like one of the things he claims is
that no one used to eat shrimp in New York
before he came to town, and he just kept asking
people for pulling peel shrimp, eating it on docks and stuff,
(13:27):
and suddenly, like the whole town was into it, right.
He also claimed he invented thumb wrestlings.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh way, that would be so starstruck.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Who knows, maybe you did. But speaking of crazy ideas
that took off, I'm going to talk about a non
alcoholic cocktail, and that's the Arnold Palmer.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I feel like we've talked about this one before, haven't we.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
That's right, But you know, as you'd imagine, legendary golfer
Arnold Palmer was not the first to combine iced tea
with lemonade, but he was the first.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
To popularize the drink.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
You know, this is something that I order from time
to time, but I always get a little nervous before
I say it. And my kids actually made fun of
me because I have a hard time saying without really
slowing down, saying Arnold Palmer, so they like.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To wait for me to say an Arner Palmer.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
So I do love that old ESPN commercial where they're
in this cafeteria and these two sportscasters are there just
watching as Arnold Palmer goes up to the dispenser and
he fills his glass half with lemonade than half with
ice team and then he walks away and they go,
that was awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I love that, And I you know, I'm sure there
are plenty of people out there who can't say Arnold Palmer,
So like, yeah, maybe we should just call it an
Arnie Pommey. I like that. I like it. Well, the
name of the drink goes back to the late sixties,
and this is when this woman happened to overhear Palmer
ordering his favorite drink at a bar in Palm Springs,
and she apparently was starstruck. Right, she was a huge fan,
(14:46):
so she immediately ordered one of the same and simply
referred to it as that Palmer drink. Another way you
and I can refer to it, And that's how it
kind of took off. But a more official connection was
made years later when Palmer licensed both his name and
image to brand versions of the drinks. But you know,
in the early days, it was just his fans requesting
the drink, and and that's sort of how it's spread.
(15:07):
But here's what's funny. If you want to mix up
your own Arnold Palmer at home, you'll actually have to
decide which ratio to use. Normally, the drink is served
fifty to fifty, also known as a half and half
to non Palmer fans. Palmer actually preferred a seventy five
percent tea to twenty five percent lemonade mix, but his
wife was this total sweet tooth, and so she'd use
(15:27):
sweet tea and lemonade, and her version is called a
win Palmer after the namesake. And you know, just because
I have to say this, Arnold Palmer's dentist used to
be in Delaware for some reason. He used to come
to Delaware to get his teeth done. So I just
feel like that's the fact every Delaware in should know.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I don't know why you know that, but anyway, We've
got a few more cocktail origins to get to. But
first let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part
(16:07):
Time Genius, where we're talking drink origins. Now I'm gonna
stick with your mocktail theme and talk about the grandmother
of all mocktails, which is, of course, the Shirley Temple. So,
as you might imagine, this mixture of ginger ale, grenadine,
and Americino on top was reportedly served to the child
actress Shirley Temple starting the late nineteen thirties, and in
true cocktail fashion, there is some disagreement on where and
(16:30):
when the drink originated. There was this Beverly Hills restaurant
called Chasin's that claims to have invented the drink on
Temple's tenth birthday so she'd have something special to sip
on when she dined with her parents. And you know,
while the Brown Derby restaurant claims to be the true
home of the drink, also the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in
Wakiki claims that they were the first to mix it
for But the funny part is that while all these
(16:52):
places claim they invented it for her, Hirley Temple actually
wasn't a fan of the drink. She reportedly found it
to be much too sweet for her taste.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Which is amazing. It feels like such an insult coming
from a child.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah, I mean, apparently the only thing she found more
distasteful was when companies tried to market a bottle cherry
soda called the Shirley Temple in the nineteen eighties. She
responded by filing multiple civil lawsuits, claiming her name was
not a generic term and that the use of it
was an invasion of her privacy.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And the company's actually eventually back down.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That's pretty amazing. I mean, I do know she was
super smart, right, like she was supposedly like this ambassador
or diplomat.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, that's true, and I believe it was to Czechoslovakia.
But since I did a Shirley Temple fact I think
I should tackle at sibling cocktail while I'm at it,
And that's the Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So one of my favorite scenes on thirty Rock is
when Alec Baldwin's at this bar and he orders this
really fru food drink, like I think it's like a
white rum with diet ginger ale and a splash of
lime or something, and the bartender says, sir, here's your
Nancy Drew, and Alec Baldwin is just so offended and
he says, for men, it's called a hardy boy. I don't
know why that line is so funny, to be, the
(18:02):
idea that we need like a coke version of the
Shirley Temple to appeal to boys is just so dumb.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, you're right, it's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
And sometimes the Shirley Temple with cola substituted in for
ginger ale is also called a Shirley Temple Black, which
also happened to be Shirley's married name. But the reason
the mock tail is interesting is that it's also named
for Rory Rogers, you know, the cowboy actor who later
owned his own fast food plays. But apparently Rogers was
a teetotaler, and I always thought that it was given
(18:29):
the cowboy named Roy Rogers just to appeal to boys.
But supposedly he actually had the drink mixed up for
him on set when he was shooting westerns on TV.
And this was, of course, back in the nineteen forties,
so it's been around for a while.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That's interesting that he actually liked the drink. Wuer Shirley
Temple hates yes, but you know, I'm got to cat
this with a proper cocktail fact, and this one's about
the My Tie. So Gabe has been trying to get
us to do a show on Tea Culture for a
while now, and we'll definitely get to it one day,
don't worry. But this story comes from him. So most
associate the My Tie with Hawaii, likely because of the name,
(19:03):
which means good or nice in Tahitian, But the drink
was actually the creation of this Oakland bartender named Victor Bergerom.
He's also known as Trader Vic, you might know, And
this was back in nineteen forty four and a few
years later, Vic was hired to create a cocktail menu
for a Hawaiian cruise line and also the sister hotel,
the Royal Hawaiian, so he put it on the menu,
but he really wasn't confident about it, so he kind
(19:24):
of stuck the Myti near the bottom of the list,
and of course it became this immediate hit, partially because
people assumed it was a Hawaiian drink and they just
wanted to blend in with the locals. But the downside
to the success is that Vic felt the need to
protect his recipes from the public, which made it difficult
for other bartenders to recreate the drink, and as a result,
they are all these different versions of the drink on
(19:46):
the market now. So like some use way too much
pineapple juice or grenadine and they're like sickly sweet. Some
aren't sweet but just taste disgusting. And this is all
why the Mytai is sometimes called the most abused cocktail
in the world. But if you're looking for a true
my tie, it should include just a handful of ingredients rum,
orange liquor, almond syrup, simple syrup, and freshly squeezed lime
(20:09):
juice and it's topped with freshman Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, I like the fact that things are getting even
more wild out there. I think Tristan pulled out as
his third zema.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Of the day, a four pack.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, I feel like we've covered a lot today
that drink shouldn't be gender that you know, drinking on
the job was a thing that happened with screwdrivers, sex
in the city, Arnold Palmer's tennis. But I do feel
like the fact I liked the most was the one
about Tom Collins talking trash.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
About you last night in a bar. That was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I agreed, I will not stand for it. So let's
take Tristan and go find Tom and set him straight.
But you know, Gabe actually texted me right before this
and he said, I'm gonna read from the email if
you get a chance, toss out a mention of the
Jersey Turnpike, a notorious lost a bet cocktail where the
server flips the bar mat, collects the liquid runoff, and
then completes the drink by ring a used barracks straight
(21:01):
into a glass, which is so gross. You know, I
do want to thank you for the trophy this week,
and to all of you out there, thank you so
much for sending facts. It really makes our day. You know,
we got this Twitter fact from Robert Vogel, who after
our Raccoons episode, told us about the Madison, Alabama new
baseball team.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
They've got.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's a double A team called the Rocket City Trash
Pandas and I love this name, so my son and
I have already agreed that they are a new favorite
double A team and keep those facts coming, but from
all of us here at part time, Genius gave Kristen
Will and me thank you so much for listening.
Guess what mango? What's that?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Will?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right? So I was in a restaurant the other night.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I was looking at the menu, and for some reason,
I started thinking about all the names that were on
the cocktail list there. I was kind of bored, to
be honest with you, So I started thinking about these things.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I saw Irish coffee.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
On the list, and then I was even more bored.
So I started to wonder a little bit more about this,
and I was trying to think through like whether that's offensive,
you know, like you pour a little whiskey into a
hot coffee and then suddenly it's Irish for some reason.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, I mean I feel like cocktail names are so weird, right,
Like white Russians had nothing to do with Russia or
Mikyle Berushnikoff.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I mean they do have Vodkin in my guess, and
it's the same with black Russians, like that was invented
in Belgium apparently.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
So the weird thing is that Gabe was looking into
this and the name Irish whiskey was actually a point
of pride for the man who coined it. So the
guy's name was Joe Sheridan and he was the chef
at an airport restaurant and the port of coins over
in Ireland.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So that's kind of funny it was invented in an airport.
But what's the story there? All right?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
This goes back to nineteen forty three, and I guess
at the time there was this extremely rough winter storm
going on, so planes are getting grounded and you know,
passengers are stuck inside there. So Joe basically takes pity
on the exhausted passengers and he offers them this mix
of hot coffee and Irish whiskey, kind of as a
way to help them warm up. And so one American
(01:20):
passenger inquires about this and he asked, you know, have
we just been served Brazilian coffee? Well Joe shakes his head,
of course, and he said, no, serf, that's Irish.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Coffee you're drinking.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Oh that's clever.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, if you glad I spared you the Irish accent there.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
All right.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So a few weeks later, Chef Joe just convinced the
restaurant owner there to add his Irish coffee to the menu,
and passengers there and Foins and beyond have been enjoying
it ever since. So that's just the first of nine
facts about cocktails that will dig into today.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof booth
trying to make himself.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
A poose cafe. Yeah, it's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You know. These are these gorgeous drinks because they look
kind of like a rainbow and glass. It's like super
alcoholic and they're layered, but each sip is a little
bit different, and the drink is to make sure it
all sip's good.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think that's what Tristan was trying to do, but
it kind of came out tam so he just poured
it out and made himself a Zemo with a little
red skittle at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
But I think that's a less savvy cocktail, to be
honest with it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Which is amazing that Tristan found a bottle of zema.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Can't they make that anymore?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
They defind out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I am excited to talk about cocktails because the first
one is something I've had questions about forever, and that's
a Tom Collins so the question everyone asks is who
exactly was Tom Collins? And you and I are not
the first person to wonder about this, And in fact,
in nineteenth century New York, asking folks if they knew
Tom Collins was some people's favorite pastime. So the way
it worked was that a stranger would come up to
(03:12):
you in the street or whatever, and they'd tell you that, like,
twenty minutes earlier, they saw Tom Collins trash talking you.
And they say this to like anyone who'd listened, right,
he was like talking about your clothes, your weak work ethic,
the fact that you can't go left on a basketball court. Whatever,
that's true. And so you get all confused and flustered
because you don't really know anyone named Tom Collins, and
(03:34):
who is this guy to slander you? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you asked the stranger where he saw Tom Collins last,
and he directs you towards the local pub.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Ah, I see, right, So it's.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Like this genius marketing trick. So a few minutes later,
you storm into the bar demand to see Tom Collins,
at which point the bartender nods silently, fixes you a drink,
and he hands you with Tom Collins, which I guess
is old Tom Gin lemon juice and sugar topped off
with carbonated water. Thing is right, you get to meet
Tom Collins. So it's like a cute little trick and
(04:04):
it's a nice story. And according to saucy dot com,
which is a beverage site, the Tom Collins was a
product of a nineteenth century prank for people with way
too much time on their hands, and of course the
bartender was actually in on the joke. Some people have
suggested that the entire hoax was concocted by bar owners
as a way to sell more drinks, and that the
strangers on the street were actually on the bar's payrolls.
But either way, what we got on the end was
(04:26):
this tasty summary drink, which is way better than any
bar fight.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's pretty cool. I'd actually wondered that one as well.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
All right, Well, another name I've been thinking about recently
is the Screwdriver, which is a very simple cocktail. It's
just one part vodka and one part orange juice.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Of course, yeah, I mean, isn't it funny that something
that simple has a name instead of just like vodka
with orange And the fact that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
A Greyhound is vodka with grapefruit juice too, but supposedly
that got its name from being served at the restaurant
attached at a Greyhound bus station.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I guess that's super weird.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I feel like I've never heard Paul Simon sing about that.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, I me a little bit of questioning, you know,
the veracity of all of these, But the screwdriver has
a better story than this. So obviously Americans like their vodka,
and in fact, it's actually the best selling liquor in
the country accounting for it's something like a third of
all liquors sold last year and more than six billion
dollars in sales.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And of course making screwdrivers, as we said, is super simple.
But if you want to stay true to the drink's roots,
then you actually want to use a real screwdriver. And
that's because the drink is said to have been invented
by American oil workers who were stationed in the Persian Gulf.
And this was back in the forties.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's finny, you know. I've obviously had that drink, but
I never think it's that old.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, So the workers decided to make the work day
a little bit more interesting by secretly adding vodka to
their morning oj and because they didn't have any spoons handy,
they stirred the drink with their screwdrivers instead, and before
long the men started referring to the drink as a
screwdriver now, you know, partially because it was just a
fun way to talk about drinking around your bosses, like,
you know, this job sure would be a little easier
(05:59):
with a screwdriver.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, I mean, having murky origin stories is kind of
like a running theme with famous cocktails, and the Long
Island Iced Tea is no exception. So a lot of
people say the drink was first mixed during Prohibition as
a way to disguise a drink as plain tea, and
others say the drink was created in the nineteen seventies
and this contest sponsored by Triple Sack. So I've actually
seen a video of the guy nicknamed Rosebud who supposedly
(06:22):
invented it in the seventies, and he's just throwing this
like equal parts of vodka, jin Rom tequila and Triple
Sick into a blender and a little bit of cola.
And it's not like the super neat mixology video because
he makes kind of a mess with a blender and everything.
But you know, apparently he dubbed it a Long Islandized
tea because of where his bar was located. But what's
(06:43):
incredible to me, and this is all Gabe doing the
research here, is that New York isn't the only Long
Island to lay claim to this drink. Tennessee also has
a Long Island of its own, and it's right in
the middle of the Holston River near the town of Kingsport. So,
according to the town, long Islandized Tea was actually the
creation of this local bootlegger there. His name was Charlie
Oldman Bishop and old Man Bishop. One day, suppose they
(07:05):
got a little creative. He took vodka, gin whiskey tequila
and mixed them together with maple syrup. And then in
the nineteen forties, this son Ransom perfected the recipe by
adding a little bit of citrus juice and a little
cola to the mix. And as you can imagine, the
two Long Islands are at odds over who came up
with this disgusting drink first. I mean, they even compete
(07:25):
in this thing called Battle for the Tea, where they
blindfolded bar patrons and gave them each of the region's
teas and everyone voted for their favorite, but unfortunately they
made it a best of two match, so both Long
Islands have actually won one round each and there's no
third round schedules.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sounds like they'd had a few of them before they
came up with that idea for a best of two.
I also feel like we should grab a few folks
from the Savor team and have a little office test
and kind of choose for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
But yeah, So today's episod so to part time Genius
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Speaker 3 (10:38):
All right, well, speaking of murky origins, why don't we
talk about the Cosmopolitan, which claims two stories of its own,
actually none of.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Which I'm guessing have to do with sex and the city.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Well, here's the weird thing is that one of them
actually does.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So. One option is that the drink got its start
in the mid nineteen eighties at a bar in Miami
South Beach. So, according to legend, a woman named Cheryl
Cook invented it, and it was supposed to be like
a more feminine take on the Martini because she'd noticed
that many women seem to enjoy the shape of the
classic Martini glass more than the taste of the actual drink.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
That it came with.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
So here's where the Sex and the City connection comes in.
Cook claims that the show's mother daughter costume design team
had been customers at her bar for like fifteen years
before the show started, so the inclusion of the Cosmo
and the show might have actually been a fun nod
to Cook.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh, that's interesting, and the show actually did revitalize the
cocktail from what I know. I mean kind of the
same way Sideways got people to stop drinking Merlow Yeah,
or the.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Way you know, everybody started drinking white Russians right after
The Big Lebowski. There's actually another great story that could
also be the starting point for the Cosmopolitan as well.
So according to an African American bartender named Neil Murray,
he invented the drink back in nineteen seventy five, and
this was as a way of asserting himself at the
bar that was under racist management at the time. Now,
(11:54):
the story goes that Murray had interviewed to be a
bartender at the Cork and Cleaver bar in Minneapolis earlier
than year, but despite having a pretty good interview, he
was actually later told by a friend that the managers
passed on him simply because he was black. Still, the
staff was on Murray's side, so when management went away
for the weekend, the staff slip trained him over the
course of three days and put him on the payroll.
(12:17):
Then the managers agreed to try him out once they returned.
But here's the backstory to the drink. So one night
not too long after, Murray was mixing up a popular
cocktail called the Kama Kazi when he decided to add
a splash of cranberry juice to the mix. Now, the
customer loved the extra fruity punch and asked Murray what
had inspired him to add it, and Murray just said
it just felt like it needed a little color. So
(12:39):
the customer responds that it looks very cosmopolitan, and that's
how the drink actually got its name. But the funniest
part is that Murray says he started ordering the drink
and every town he passed through after that, So he
would go to a bar and order a Cosmopolitan, and
when they'd asked him to remind him what it was,
Murray would tell them that it was a kama Kazi
with cranberry juice. So bartender suggested the drink to customers,
(13:02):
and the drink gradually spread from coast to coast.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
On This American Life where Sarah Kannig is talking about
her dad, who's this legendary admin. He wrote the old Volkswagen,
think small ad and lemonads, and he's, you know, kind
of known as a genius. But he also makes these
outrageous claims, Like one of the things he claims is
that no one used to eat shrimp in New York
before he came to town, and he just kept asking
people for pulling peel shrimp, eating it on docks and stuff,
(13:27):
and suddenly, like the whole town was into it, right.
He also claimed he invented thumb wrestlings.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh way, that would be so starstruck.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Who knows, maybe you did. But speaking of crazy ideas
that took off, I'm going to talk about a non
alcoholic cocktail, and that's the Arnold Palmer.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I feel like we've talked about this one before, haven't we.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
That's right, But you know, as you'd imagine, legendary golfer
Arnold Palmer was not the first to combine iced tea
with lemonade, but he was the first.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
To popularize the drink.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
You know, this is something that I order from time
to time, but I always get a little nervous before
I say it. And my kids actually made fun of
me because I have a hard time saying without really
slowing down, saying Arnold Palmer, so they like.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To wait for me to say an Arner Palmer.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
So I do love that old ESPN commercial where they're
in this cafeteria and these two sportscasters are there just
watching as Arnold Palmer goes up to the dispenser and
he fills his glass half with lemonade than half with
ice team and then he walks away and they go,
that was awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I love that, And I you know, I'm sure there
are plenty of people out there who can't say Arnold Palmer,
So like, yeah, maybe we should just call it an
Arnie Pommey. I like that. I like it. Well, the
name of the drink goes back to the late sixties,
and this is when this woman happened to overhear Palmer
ordering his favorite drink at a bar in Palm Springs,
and she apparently was starstruck. Right, she was a huge fan,
(14:46):
so she immediately ordered one of the same and simply
referred to it as that Palmer drink. Another way you
and I can refer to it, And that's how it
kind of took off. But a more official connection was
made years later when Palmer licensed both his name and
image to brand versions of the drinks. But you know,
in the early days, it was just his fans requesting
the drink, and and that's sort of how it's spread.
(15:07):
But here's what's funny. If you want to mix up
your own Arnold Palmer at home, you'll actually have to
decide which ratio to use. Normally, the drink is served
fifty to fifty, also known as a half and half
to non Palmer fans. Palmer actually preferred a seventy five
percent tea to twenty five percent lemonade mix, but his
wife was this total sweet tooth, and so she'd use
(15:27):
sweet tea and lemonade, and her version is called a
win Palmer after the namesake. And you know, just because
I have to say this, Arnold Palmer's dentist used to
be in Delaware for some reason. He used to come
to Delaware to get his teeth done. So I just
feel like that's the fact every Delaware in should know.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I don't know why you know that, but anyway, We've
got a few more cocktail origins to get to. But
first let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part
(16:07):
Time Genius, where we're talking drink origins. Now I'm gonna
stick with your mocktail theme and talk about the grandmother
of all mocktails, which is, of course, the Shirley Temple. So,
as you might imagine, this mixture of ginger ale, grenadine,
and Americino on top was reportedly served to the child
actress Shirley Temple starting the late nineteen thirties, and in
true cocktail fashion, there is some disagreement on where and
(16:30):
when the drink originated. There was this Beverly Hills restaurant
called Chasin's that claims to have invented the drink on
Temple's tenth birthday so she'd have something special to sip
on when she dined with her parents. And you know,
while the Brown Derby restaurant claims to be the true
home of the drink, also the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in
Wakiki claims that they were the first to mix it
for But the funny part is that while all these
(16:52):
places claim they invented it for her, Hirley Temple actually
wasn't a fan of the drink. She reportedly found it
to be much too sweet for her taste.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Which is amazing. It feels like such an insult coming
from a child.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah, I mean, apparently the only thing she found more
distasteful was when companies tried to market a bottle cherry
soda called the Shirley Temple in the nineteen eighties. She
responded by filing multiple civil lawsuits, claiming her name was
not a generic term and that the use of it
was an invasion of her privacy.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And the company's actually eventually back down.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That's pretty amazing. I mean, I do know she was
super smart, right, like she was supposedly like this ambassador
or diplomat.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, that's true, and I believe it was to Czechoslovakia.
But since I did a Shirley Temple fact I think
I should tackle at sibling cocktail while I'm at it,
And that's the Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So one of my favorite scenes on thirty Rock is
when Alec Baldwin's at this bar and he orders this
really fru food drink, like I think it's like a
white rum with diet ginger ale and a splash of
lime or something, and the bartender says, sir, here's your
Nancy Drew, and Alec Baldwin is just so offended and
he says, for men, it's called a hardy boy. I don't
know why that line is so funny, to be, the
(18:02):
idea that we need like a coke version of the
Shirley Temple to appeal to boys is just so dumb.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, you're right, it's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
And sometimes the Shirley Temple with cola substituted in for
ginger ale is also called a Shirley Temple Black, which
also happened to be Shirley's married name. But the reason
the mock tail is interesting is that it's also named
for Rory Rogers, you know, the cowboy actor who later
owned his own fast food plays. But apparently Rogers was
a teetotaler, and I always thought that it was given
(18:29):
the cowboy named Roy Rogers just to appeal to boys.
But supposedly he actually had the drink mixed up for
him on set when he was shooting westerns on TV.
And this was, of course, back in the nineteen forties,
so it's been around for a while.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
That's interesting that he actually liked the drink. Wuer Shirley
Temple hates yes, but you know, I'm got to cat
this with a proper cocktail fact, and this one's about
the My Tie. So Gabe has been trying to get
us to do a show on Tea Culture for a
while now, and we'll definitely get to it one day,
don't worry. But this story comes from him. So most
associate the My Tie with Hawaii, likely because of the name,
(19:03):
which means good or nice in Tahitian, But the drink
was actually the creation of this Oakland bartender named Victor Bergerom.
He's also known as Trader Vic, you might know, And
this was back in nineteen forty four and a few
years later, Vic was hired to create a cocktail menu
for a Hawaiian cruise line and also the sister hotel,
the Royal Hawaiian, so he put it on the menu,
but he really wasn't confident about it, so he kind
(19:24):
of stuck the Myti near the bottom of the list,
and of course it became this immediate hit, partially because
people assumed it was a Hawaiian drink and they just
wanted to blend in with the locals. But the downside
to the success is that Vic felt the need to
protect his recipes from the public, which made it difficult
for other bartenders to recreate the drink, and as a result,
they are all these different versions of the drink on
(19:46):
the market now. So like some use way too much
pineapple juice or grenadine and they're like sickly sweet. Some
aren't sweet but just taste disgusting. And this is all
why the Mytai is sometimes called the most abused cocktail
in the world. But if you're looking for a true
my tie, it should include just a handful of ingredients rum,
orange liquor, almond syrup, simple syrup, and freshly squeezed lime
(20:09):
juice and it's topped with freshman Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, I like the fact that things are getting even
more wild out there. I think Tristan pulled out as
his third zema.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Of the day, a four pack.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, I feel like we've covered a lot today
that drink shouldn't be gender that you know, drinking on
the job was a thing that happened with screwdrivers, sex
in the city, Arnold Palmer's tennis. But I do feel
like the fact I liked the most was the one
about Tom Collins talking trash.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
About you last night in a bar. That was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I agreed, I will not stand for it. So let's
take Tristan and go find Tom and set him straight.
But you know, Gabe actually texted me right before this
and he said, I'm gonna read from the email if
you get a chance, toss out a mention of the
Jersey Turnpike, a notorious lost a bet cocktail where the
server flips the bar mat, collects the liquid runoff, and
then completes the drink by ring a used barracks straight
(21:01):
into a glass, which is so gross. You know, I
do want to thank you for the trophy this week,
and to all of you out there, thank you so
much for sending facts. It really makes our day. You know,
we got this Twitter fact from Robert Vogel, who after
our Raccoons episode, told us about the Madison, Alabama new
baseball team.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
They've got.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's a double A team called the Rocket City Trash
Pandas and I love this name, so my son and
I have already agreed that they are a new favorite
double A team and keep those facts coming, but from
all of us here at part time, Genius gave Kristen
Will and me thank you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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