February 21, 2024 • 26 mins
For a rum punch designed with escapism in mind, this cocktail has a lot of controversy swirling around it. In our classic episode, Anney and Lauren dip into the history of the mai tai (plus, the science and history of cocktail umbrellas).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savior prediction of iHeart. You know,
I'm any race.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more on Vogel Bam. And today we have
a classic episode for you about the my Thaie cocktail.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh, it is like it's been cold and rainy and
I just want something bright and delightful in my life.
And I was looking through the archive and I was like,
you know what, let's revisit the my Tie.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Let's revisit the Sie. And we we did. We've had
some good experiences together, some with the whole team.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh yeah, some lovely ones. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You can see our Oahu episodes and specifically Cocktail Hour
o wahu uh. This episode, though aired way before we
had even dreamed of making our bosses mad by going
to Hawaii. This came out in December of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
That cracks me up because I'm pretty sure you suggested it.
And it was once again in the winter, So you
must have some like it's dark and dream cold outside,
I need some escape that the might tie.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yes, absolutely, that being said, I drink drink responsibly, y'all.
I feel like I feel like we were both a
little bit more fast and loose with our concept of
drinking responsibly back in twenty seventeen. So I want to
really really emphasize that, especially with a drink like this
that contains more than two shots of alcohol and is
(01:46):
so drinkable that you don't really notice it, which is
a dangerous combination.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, yep, it definitely is. And I think that was
in this episode. I had said I'd only had like
the kind of cheese, the ones you get on like,
I don't know, a tourists tourist destinations.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Kind of water water down with juice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, so this was a it was a learning curve
for me. Oh okay, no, okay, I got to slow
down on this one.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's uh. I got to go be the
wedding officiant for a dear friend's wedding out in San
Diego last year, and they had their reception at this
bar and restaurant that did that was famous for my
ties or is famous for my ties and yeah, yeah,
they have a two my Thai limit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's it. They cut you off after that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yep, faird It definitely definitely legit also very good though,
that was delightful in multiple ways, but at any rate,
I think that is enough from current us. Let us
let a former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Hello, and welcome to food Steph. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I'm Lauren. Vocal bam, and it is time for
another cocktail hour.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yes, it is that time. It's getting cold outside in
the Northern Hemisphere. The holidays are bearing down upon us,
so we thought we'd cozy up with a nice traffical
escapist drink that my tie.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yay.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah. So for all the people imagining getting away to
the beach.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
For doing the opposite of dreaming of a white Christmas, Yeah, yeah,
this one's for you.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Okay. So what is my tie? This is a great
question because almost everything I read started with some variation
of the phrase you've probably never had a real my tie,
which is very judgmental. Yeah, but I didn't. We have
this conversation, Yeah, and then you took me to a
place and we got a my tie. Yes, it was
great anyway, So what is a real my tie? What
(04:00):
is a fake one? And what's the deal with the umbrellas?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It is all enough to cause a mild existential crisis
right up until you get to the delightful little cocktail.
Umbrella part am i tie is a type of rum punch.
Purists like me will tell you that it should be
made with a blend of light and dark RUMs, orange cursow,
lime juice demrera simple syrup demrera is a type of
raw sugar and sweet almond liquor or syrup aka or jat.
(04:26):
You generally shake this combination with ice and then serve
it over some fresh crushed ice with maybe a mint sprig.
Sometimes the dark rum or a little bit of surplus
dark rum is floated on top of the finished drink
instead of being totally shaken in. And the flavor of
this concoction is like a little bit sweet and sour,
a little floral, a little fruity, and a little richer,
(04:46):
sort of like caramelly. And it's not what i'd call
it a refreshing punch, but it tastes amazing and smooth
and thus will totally knock you on your butt if
you're not careful. This is one of your favorite cocktail
it right is strange. Oh this also brings us to hey, kids,
drink responsibly. Oh yeah, we forgot to mention that at
(05:08):
the top we should have yes, but here it is,
but here it is, yes, and an appropriate place. So
that's the kind of like base recipe that most people
will tell you is the real recipe, uh huh. But
it is sometimes made with wildly different syrups, liquors, and juices,
which do greatly affect, of course, the flavor and the result.
(05:29):
Pineapple and orange juice are popular, and other stuff like
ginger syrup and fulernum, which is a sort of spiced
lime kind of liquor. Oh really, Yeah. The thing that
I like about the original is that it's not too sweet,
and those other ingredients tend to sweeten it and also
kind of just like muddle the flavor a little bit,
which is like almost like a bartender pun. But I
(05:50):
didn't really work that hard on it. I don't know. Anyway,
I liked it, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, And that was when Lauren took me to get
my tie. My experience. I'd been with the overly sweetened version,
so I was a little weary. It was delicious, Yeah,
it was. It was kind of complex, and I really
liked the almond yeah yeah that' or.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Shot oh man. Okay, all right, so yeah, so a
few notes about the ingredients because Okay, you know, like rum,
I feel like it's considered a little bit pedestrian, but
it is just complex as all. Heck, the principal definition
of rum is that it's a liquor distilled from sugar,
and where it goes from there depends on the sugar
product used from you know, fresh preussed sugar cane to
(06:34):
boiled molasses or anything in between from a number of
different and distinct sugar cane cultivars, and also what you
do with it after you you know, boozify that sugar,
including adding spices or age again in any number of materials,
from stainless steel drums for light RUMs to spent bourbon
barrels for aged RUMs, to charred barrels for dark RUMs.
(06:57):
So much industry really depends on barrel mongers getting the
United States to pass laws about bourbon barrels only being
used once it's true.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It all comes back, it does, and we've gotten some
requests to do an episode on barrels and absolutely that
it's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, oh man, that's a great like first inedible thing episode.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, first an edible thing, food stuff, not food stuff,
not food.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That orgeat is basically my favorite thing the whole dang universe.
You can make your own at home if you want.
The Internet will tell you how, or you can purchase it.
It's generally ground almonds that are soaked in sugar and
maybe some orange flower water plus or minus a neutral
flavored booze that's usually more like a stabilizer than anything else.
That orange cursow is also sometimes looked down upon. I
(07:45):
blame the nineteen eighties. Thanks for nothing, nineteen eighties. Yeah, oh,
thanks for quite a few things actually, like me included anyway. Yeah,
as with most things, the orange cursow that is made
with like actual food is pretty good.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, yeah, surprising.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Caurso is actually an island off of Venezuela, and when
the Spanish moved in there, they tried cultivating Valencia oranges.
It did not work very well. The climate's pretty dry,
even though it's a sort of tropical sque and over
time the kind of forgotten Valencia orange trees morphed into
these kind of like bad for eating but lovely for
(08:24):
their oil oranges known as lahara. They've got this this aromatic, bitter,
spicy note that's just lovely. A proper curso is made
with the dried peels of these oranges soaked in brandy.
And if you cannot find it, Grand Marnier is made
in a similar way and is thus an appropriate substitution. Yes,
(08:44):
I really want to my tie now, it's like ten
in the morning. Is there anything you can do to
distract manny?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I think I might have a little history. Yeah, my
Thai history. But first let's pause for a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So my ties got their start around World
(09:14):
War two as part of this surging Western interest with
all things of the South Pacific. In the US, this
translated to an explosion of tiki bars across the country.
All the cocktail umbrellas, the big bull drinks, the grass
skirt wearing servers, and tiki decor that you could ever
want as far as they could see inside these tiki
bars anyway. Well, yeah, yeah, And there are two prominent
(09:36):
theories as to who invented the my tie, and they
both have excellent names, don the beach Comber and Trader Vic.
I'm sure those are their real names too. I'll talk
about that. Yes, yeah, let's start with the Beachcomber.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Beachcomber is often cited as being at the center of
this tiki culture boom, sometimes called tikiedom. And yes, okay,
so it's not his name too bad. He went by
several names, Don Beach, Don Beechcomber, or Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gaunt.
Three guesses which one is the real one?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It was?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Gaunt. Gaunt was a Texan born in nineteen oh seven.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
He was raised in New Orleans and then set about
exploring the world. Legend has it that he was a
rum bootlegger during Prohibition.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes, and he traveled to the Caribbean and South Pacific.
From what I read, became sort of like a hippie
surfer dude. Ultra chill. Oh yeah, yeah. He missed this
chill when he returned to the US. And I've experienced
this too him. There are even whole scientific studies and
theories about it. Different podcast, but it's really interesting, okay.
(10:44):
And he went about returning this chill, restoring it to
the US by opening the US's first tiki bar in
nineteen thirty four. He called it Don the Beachcomber. It
was a hit, drawing in crowds that included famous people
with its laid back atmosphere, delicious and strong rum drinks,
and the food, which was actually the not so common
(11:05):
at the time Cantonese food and other kind of Asian foods.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, probably not usually Polynesian, but no come from the Yeah.
Part of the Polynesian appeal was that while American made
liquor makers had to restart production after prohibition, imported RUMs
were available, and an expensive also canned pineapple juice had
just been invented. See our pineapple episode for more about that.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
It was such a hit that Gant Gaunt changed his
name to Don Beach.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That original Beachcomber Bar is still open, by the way,
you can go there.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Cool. That same year, a certain Trader Vic whose real
name was Vic Bergeron, opened his own tea bar called
Hinky Dinks. The name changed to Trader Vicks came in
nineteen thirty seven. It too, was popular enough so that
it opened new locations in Seattle and even pre statehood, Hawaii.
(12:00):
In nineteen thirty nine, Beach debuted a cocktail named the
Zombie at the New York World's Fair. If you never
had one of these before, The original Zombie was a
mixture of white gold and dark RUMs, juice usually line
papaya or pineapple, apricot, brandy, fulernum, and bitters. According to
his obituary in The New York Times, he invented eighty
four drinks before arriving at this fun and allegedly he
(12:23):
whipped it up to help a patron with a hangover
get through a business meeting. Yeah it didn't work, however,
now how could that be? I don't know, And that
the customer complained that it actually turned him into a
zombie made things worse, hence the name. With the outbreak
of World War Two, the Beachcomber was deployed to Europe,
(12:44):
leaving his wife in charge of the bar, and take
charge she did, growing it to a chain boasting sixteen locations.
Tiki culture boomed in the forties and fifties. Thinks in
part to the spreading of these tiki bars, which in
turn boosted the popularity of these tiki bars. Kind of
a s of t tiki bar life. Yeah, thing, people
(13:05):
really dug the escapist aspect to them the chill apps. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Also, American military humans returning from duty in the South
Pacific had gotten a little bit of a taste for
the culture there. Was a Rogers and Hammerstein musical.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
It was a whole thing. Yeah, I think I've heard
of that. In nineteen forty four, Tradervic purportedly invented the
Matai in Imeryville, California. He had some friends visiting from
Tahiti and he mixed them this proto matai combo of rum,
a seventeen year old one for this special occasion, lime
simple syrup or jatte and orange cursow to which one
(13:41):
of the inbibers exclaimed, my thairo i, meaning very good
are out of this world. And the reason he mixed
this he specifically wanted to highlight the taste of the
rum because it was special rum, so he didn't want
anything to overpower it, just kind of enhance it, right.
Tradervic never disclosed the exact recipe, which is cited as
one of the reasons we have so many bad takes
(14:02):
on my ties. Curse you Vick, Yes, curse you Vic.
And that's what Don Beach says. So going back to him,
he claims to have invented the my tie in nineteen
thirty three, so years before. Only he called it the
QB cooler, and he said that it served as the
inspiration for trader Vix My Tie. Beach says that before
(14:23):
Tradervic had trader Vix was trader Vix, he'd frequent Beach's bar,
and that he pretty much stole the recipe for the
my Tie. Trader Vic obviously disputes these claims, writing in
his nineteen forty seven trader Vick's Bartending Guide, Anyone who
says that I didn't create this drink is a dirty stinker.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Oh strong words.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Man, what a burn. The QB cooler has double the
amount of ingredients, though, including ginger syrup, orange juice, club soda,
and honey. Whoever invented it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
My don't fight folks?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, well we'll fight more later. Oh par yes, whoever
invented it? The my Tie was so well liked so
quickly that it supposedly depleted the world's supply of the
specific realm it was first made with, Ray and nephew,
seventeen year old Jamaican rum. Trader Vic came out with
an updated version of the drink in the nineteen fifties,
replacing the now rare rum with an aged molasses based
(15:21):
Martinique rum and a Jamaican rum blended together of the
drink's popularity. Author of Potions of the Caribbean, Jeff Barry
wrote of the Matai that it was less a drink
than a symbol of your Hawaiian holiday, either the one
you'd taken or the one you aspired to take. It
was paradise in a glass. Ah that does sound lovely?
(15:41):
It does. It was time though, for the my Ti
too actually make the journey to Hawaii. What Yeah. In
nineteen fifty three, trader Vick was hired by Mattson Steamship Lines,
a shipping company that helped popularize Hawaii as a vacation destination,
to craft the cocktail menus for the Royal Hawaiian and
Mowana Surfrider Hotels, which of course featured the my Tie.
(16:04):
To make the drink more appealing to tourist, Tradervic added
orange and pineapple juices for a sweeter cocktail at Waikiki's
Royal Hawaiian Hotel in nineteen fifty four, and that became
a standard, replacing the original, less sweet my Tie. Don
Beach by the Way had opened a Don the Beach
Comber on Waikiki at nineteen forty seven, so they were
kind of yeah, dovetailings. Yeah. When Hawaii became a state
(16:27):
in nineteen fifty nine, more and more tourists flooded the
islands and the demand for my ties skyrocketed. Bartenders made
them by the gallon, oh yeah, and to increase their profits,
they watered the drink down, used cheaper realm, and replaced
the lime with local pineapple juice. Some had a rum
one to fifty one float.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Which I guess we'll at least make you not care
about the quality of the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
The Mytai played a significant role in the nineteen sixty
one Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii, and in the seventies,
President Nixon was a really big fan, and he hung
out at the Trader Vicks near the White House and
even took his wife there for Valaindinne's Day in nineteen
seventy three. I love that I never would have guessed that, Like,
(17:13):
what is President Nixon's favorite drink? Clearly the my tie. Obviously,
I think I would have guessed dark and stormy. Not
sure why. Also in the seventies, Trader vic released a
bottled My Time mix and sued Don the beach Comber
for coming out with Don the Beachcomber my Time mix
that claimed on the label to be the originator wo
(17:37):
my Tie. Justice. It went to court and trader Vick
had to divulge his until then secret my Tie recipe
in a seven page document he titled Let's get the
record straight on the my Tie. He won the lawsuit.
Oh wow, Yeah, I tried to find a picture of
that bottle because that's such a what a move to
(17:58):
put the originator on there, rightoo. I couldn't find any
pictures of it. So if any of you have, oh,
if anybody has some oh my goodness, has a picture,
please send it in.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Trader Vick still had some hard feelings despite winning the
court case. However, in his nineteen seventy six Hell of
a Man's cookbook, he wrote, we originated this drink. We
made the first my Tie. We named the drink. A
lot of bastards all over the country have copied it
and copyrighted it and claimed it for their own. I
hope they get the box. They're a bunch of lousy
(18:31):
bastards for copying my drink. Wow. Yeah yeah. Had some
strong opinions.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Perhaps a lack of chill.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Perhaps should I find interesting in this whole my tie story?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Clearly why I had to drink them.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They lost the true meaning of the my.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Tie, oh man.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, they lost the original recipe and the true meaning.
There's something deep here, there is there's a deeper level
to this.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Poor trader Vic.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Okay. The verdict seems to be that Trader Vic copied
the style of the restaurant of Don the Beach Comber,
and he got the inspiration for the Myti from a
drink he liked there. But he did in fact invent
the my tie. It was different email Yeah, definitely, m hm. Yeah.
As we talked about in past Cocktail Hour episodes, in
(19:22):
the eighties, a lot of cocktails suffered the terrible fate
of corner cutting with the addition of syrups and often
overly sweetened canned juices. The Halikulani on Waikiki was just
about the only place you could find the original may tie.
Using original recipes was kind of their whole thing, and
in nineteen eighty six, New York bartender Danny de Pemphialis
(19:44):
revived the original Mytie at the Mowana Hotel, but the
price meant that it didn't stick around very long.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The price, by the way, it was five point fifty,
which I'm sure at that time was like what today's
prices are. But I in my head that's like these
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's like, give me twenty nine of those.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Tiki culture also sort of faded to the background between
the sixties and nineties, but it's come back in a
pretty big way recently. The bar at the Merchant Hotel
in Belfast, Northern Ireland, made the Guinness Book of World
Records in two thousand and seven by selling the most
expensive cocktail ever, my tie made with the seventeen year
old ray and a few rum used trader Vic's first iteration,
(20:24):
oh wow for a smooth one four hundred and seventy
five dollars a pop.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What for one for one? That's a lot more than
five point fifty.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, quite a bit. Uh the but people bought them
in the hotel ran out in less than a year.
Oh my goodness, I can't even imagine that. Well anyway,
As of two thousand and nine, Oakland, California, declared August
thirtieth my Tie Day.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh yeah, I think every day is my tie Day.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well it is here at food stuff anyway. So that's
about the history, the not so chill history of the
my Tai.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
We've got a little bit more, but first we've got
one more break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you, sponsor. So here is where I
was going to have a Lauren's Kiljoy corner about tiki
(21:26):
culture and how problematic it is. But I just really
didn't feel like doing that today, to be super honest,
I was like, can I just not talk about racism
for once? That would be really nice. So instead I'm
going to talk about cocktail umbrellas. Yay, yay, and we
can talk we can talk about the rise and fall
of tiki culture at another point in time. But okay, yeah,
(21:50):
So since you asked, Annie, I did. According to famed
tiki drink historian who we've already mentioned once in this episode,
Jeff Barry, his blogs and books blog singular and books
plural are the best. Totally check them out. The teaky
umbrella saw its first use at the Hilton Ykiki, possibly
in nineteen fifty nine. A bartender there by the name
(22:11):
of Harry Yee was looking for a suitable garnish. He
first used sticks of sugarcane for his cocktails, but found
that customers had this annoying habit of chewing on them
and then leaving them in the bar ash trays, getting
everything all sticky and requiring extra washing up at the
end of a shift.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No good.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He also tried orchids, but they were kind of persnickety,
so he started using this festive paper umbrella on a
stick that the hotel happened to have on hand. It
was probably being used as a fancy toothpick, or maybe
a plate garnish, or maybe even an inexpensive gift for
customers for use in their hair or on their hats.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
If I ever see it someone picking their teeth with
an umbrella for a little cocktail umbrella, it's gonna make
my dag.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh, I'm sure it's happened. I think if you hang
out at a Trader Vix long enough, it's almost guaranteed
homework assignment.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna photograph the evidence.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Excellent, get their table, put it on social media. Yeah great,
but we have to talk that much about science this episode.
Is there science behind the cocktail umbrella?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Are they actually shading your drink? And protecting it from
the sun.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Just like an umbrella would do for me.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Rather, they might indeed keep a bit of direct sunlight
off of your cocktail, allowing the ice to melt more slowly,
which is great because drinks do become a bit unbalanced
as they water down from ice. Plus, according to professors
of chemistry and organic chemistry that Bonepetite magazine spoke to
in twenty fourteen, melted ice will the ice melted grather
(23:50):
will raise the temperature of a drink above that zero
degree celsius thirty two degrees fahrenheit, and thus slightly increase
the rate of alcohol evaporating out of your glass. The
protection of a paper umbrella will offer a pretty negligible effect, however,
compared to the ambient temperature of the room the table
of the glass is sitting on in your hand. So
(24:14):
so the science is about that noise. That's yes, The
scientific answer is that noise that Annie just made.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I also did a weird face and a shrugging of my.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Shoulder and a half shrug.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I have my left shoulder.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, just the left shoulder. Science exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
So that's what we have to say in this cocktail
hour about the mytai We will definitely come back and
talk about tiki culture. And also I kind of want
to do one on like you mentioned how rum kind
of has this oh yeah, stereotype college drinks around the
world almost because I think one of the reasons it
has that association is because that's what you drink in college.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And it can be so cheap and it's kind of
sweet and it's kind of feminine. And we've mentioned before
if you're filling out that bingo card, yeah, just hits it,
true it down the weird genderia. Yeah, rem drinks, so yeah, yeah,
lots of really fun episodes. To come back to it
a later.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Time, oh yeah, And that brings us to the end
of this classic episode. We hope that you enjoyed it
as much as we enjoyed doing it, and that's always
If you have any recipes, riffs, thoughts, any of that's
always appreciated. You can email us at hello at saborpod
(25:34):
dot com uh huh.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saber pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of
My Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of market things are coming
(25:57):
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savior prediction of iHeart. You know,
I'm any race.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more on Vogel Bam. And today we have
a classic episode for you about the my Thaie cocktail.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh, it is like it's been cold and rainy and
I just want something bright and delightful in my life.
And I was looking through the archive and I was like,
you know what, let's revisit the my Tie.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Let's revisit the Sie. And we we did. We've had
some good experiences together, some with the whole team.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh yeah, some lovely ones. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You can see our Oahu episodes and specifically Cocktail Hour
o wahu uh. This episode, though aired way before we
had even dreamed of making our bosses mad by going
to Hawaii. This came out in December of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
That cracks me up because I'm pretty sure you suggested it.
And it was once again in the winter, So you
must have some like it's dark and dream cold outside,
I need some escape that the might tie.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yes, absolutely, that being said, I drink drink responsibly, y'all.
I feel like I feel like we were both a
little bit more fast and loose with our concept of
drinking responsibly back in twenty seventeen. So I want to
really really emphasize that, especially with a drink like this
that contains more than two shots of alcohol and is
(01:46):
so drinkable that you don't really notice it, which is
a dangerous combination.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, yep, it definitely is. And I think that was
in this episode. I had said I'd only had like
the kind of cheese, the ones you get on like,
I don't know, a tourists tourist destinations.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Kind of water water down with juice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, so this was a it was a learning curve
for me. Oh okay, no, okay, I got to slow
down on this one.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's uh. I got to go be the
wedding officiant for a dear friend's wedding out in San
Diego last year, and they had their reception at this
bar and restaurant that did that was famous for my
ties or is famous for my ties and yeah, yeah,
they have a two my Thai limit.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's it. They cut you off after that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yep, faird It definitely definitely legit also very good though,
that was delightful in multiple ways, but at any rate,
I think that is enough from current us. Let us
let a former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Hello, and welcome to food Steph. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I'm Lauren. Vocal bam, and it is time for
another cocktail hour.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yes, it is that time. It's getting cold outside in
the Northern Hemisphere. The holidays are bearing down upon us,
so we thought we'd cozy up with a nice traffical
escapist drink that my tie.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yay.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah. So for all the people imagining getting away to
the beach.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
For doing the opposite of dreaming of a white Christmas, Yeah, yeah,
this one's for you.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Okay. So what is my tie? This is a great
question because almost everything I read started with some variation
of the phrase you've probably never had a real my tie,
which is very judgmental. Yeah, but I didn't. We have
this conversation, Yeah, and then you took me to a
place and we got a my tie. Yes, it was
great anyway, So what is a real my tie? What
(04:00):
is a fake one? And what's the deal with the umbrellas?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It is all enough to cause a mild existential crisis
right up until you get to the delightful little cocktail.
Umbrella part am i tie is a type of rum punch.
Purists like me will tell you that it should be
made with a blend of light and dark RUMs, orange cursow,
lime juice demrera simple syrup demrera is a type of
raw sugar and sweet almond liquor or syrup aka or jat.
(04:26):
You generally shake this combination with ice and then serve
it over some fresh crushed ice with maybe a mint sprig.
Sometimes the dark rum or a little bit of surplus
dark rum is floated on top of the finished drink
instead of being totally shaken in. And the flavor of
this concoction is like a little bit sweet and sour,
a little floral, a little fruity, and a little richer,
(04:46):
sort of like caramelly. And it's not what i'd call
it a refreshing punch, but it tastes amazing and smooth
and thus will totally knock you on your butt if
you're not careful. This is one of your favorite cocktail
it right is strange. Oh this also brings us to hey, kids,
drink responsibly. Oh yeah, we forgot to mention that at
(05:08):
the top we should have yes, but here it is,
but here it is, yes, and an appropriate place. So
that's the kind of like base recipe that most people
will tell you is the real recipe, uh huh. But
it is sometimes made with wildly different syrups, liquors, and juices,
which do greatly affect, of course, the flavor and the result.
(05:29):
Pineapple and orange juice are popular, and other stuff like
ginger syrup and fulernum, which is a sort of spiced
lime kind of liquor. Oh really, Yeah. The thing that
I like about the original is that it's not too sweet,
and those other ingredients tend to sweeten it and also
kind of just like muddle the flavor a little bit,
which is like almost like a bartender pun. But I
(05:50):
didn't really work that hard on it. I don't know. Anyway,
I liked it, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, And that was when Lauren took me to get
my tie. My experience. I'd been with the overly sweetened version,
so I was a little weary. It was delicious, Yeah,
it was. It was kind of complex, and I really
liked the almond yeah yeah that' or.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Shot oh man. Okay, all right, so yeah, so a
few notes about the ingredients because Okay, you know, like rum,
I feel like it's considered a little bit pedestrian, but
it is just complex as all. Heck, the principal definition
of rum is that it's a liquor distilled from sugar,
and where it goes from there depends on the sugar
product used from you know, fresh preussed sugar cane to
(06:34):
boiled molasses or anything in between from a number of
different and distinct sugar cane cultivars, and also what you
do with it after you you know, boozify that sugar,
including adding spices or age again in any number of materials,
from stainless steel drums for light RUMs to spent bourbon
barrels for aged RUMs, to charred barrels for dark RUMs.
(06:57):
So much industry really depends on barrel mongers getting the
United States to pass laws about bourbon barrels only being
used once it's true.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It all comes back, it does, and we've gotten some
requests to do an episode on barrels and absolutely that
it's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, oh man, that's a great like first inedible thing episode.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, first an edible thing, food stuff, not food stuff,
not food.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That orgeat is basically my favorite thing the whole dang universe.
You can make your own at home if you want.
The Internet will tell you how, or you can purchase it.
It's generally ground almonds that are soaked in sugar and
maybe some orange flower water plus or minus a neutral
flavored booze that's usually more like a stabilizer than anything else.
That orange cursow is also sometimes looked down upon. I
(07:45):
blame the nineteen eighties. Thanks for nothing, nineteen eighties. Yeah, oh,
thanks for quite a few things actually, like me included anyway. Yeah,
as with most things, the orange cursow that is made
with like actual food is pretty good.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, yeah, surprising.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Caurso is actually an island off of Venezuela, and when
the Spanish moved in there, they tried cultivating Valencia oranges.
It did not work very well. The climate's pretty dry,
even though it's a sort of tropical sque and over
time the kind of forgotten Valencia orange trees morphed into
these kind of like bad for eating but lovely for
(08:24):
their oil oranges known as lahara. They've got this this aromatic, bitter,
spicy note that's just lovely. A proper curso is made
with the dried peels of these oranges soaked in brandy.
And if you cannot find it, Grand Marnier is made
in a similar way and is thus an appropriate substitution. Yes,
(08:44):
I really want to my tie now, it's like ten
in the morning. Is there anything you can do to
distract manny?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I think I might have a little history. Yeah, my
Thai history. But first let's pause for a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So my ties got their start around World
(09:14):
War two as part of this surging Western interest with
all things of the South Pacific. In the US, this
translated to an explosion of tiki bars across the country.
All the cocktail umbrellas, the big bull drinks, the grass
skirt wearing servers, and tiki decor that you could ever
want as far as they could see inside these tiki
bars anyway. Well, yeah, yeah, And there are two prominent
(09:36):
theories as to who invented the my tie, and they
both have excellent names, don the beach Comber and Trader Vic.
I'm sure those are their real names too. I'll talk
about that. Yes, yeah, let's start with the Beachcomber.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Beachcomber is often cited as being at the center of
this tiki culture boom, sometimes called tikiedom. And yes, okay,
so it's not his name too bad. He went by
several names, Don Beach, Don Beechcomber, or Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gaunt.
Three guesses which one is the real one?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It was?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Gaunt. Gaunt was a Texan born in nineteen oh seven.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
He was raised in New Orleans and then set about
exploring the world. Legend has it that he was a
rum bootlegger during Prohibition.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes, and he traveled to the Caribbean and South Pacific.
From what I read, became sort of like a hippie
surfer dude. Ultra chill. Oh yeah, yeah. He missed this
chill when he returned to the US. And I've experienced
this too him. There are even whole scientific studies and
theories about it. Different podcast, but it's really interesting, okay.
(10:44):
And he went about returning this chill, restoring it to
the US by opening the US's first tiki bar in
nineteen thirty four. He called it Don the Beachcomber. It
was a hit, drawing in crowds that included famous people
with its laid back atmosphere, delicious and strong rum drinks,
and the food, which was actually the not so common
(11:05):
at the time Cantonese food and other kind of Asian foods.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, probably not usually Polynesian, but no come from the Yeah.
Part of the Polynesian appeal was that while American made
liquor makers had to restart production after prohibition, imported RUMs
were available, and an expensive also canned pineapple juice had
just been invented. See our pineapple episode for more about that.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
It was such a hit that Gant Gaunt changed his
name to Don Beach.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That original Beachcomber Bar is still open, by the way,
you can go there.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Cool. That same year, a certain Trader Vic whose real
name was Vic Bergeron, opened his own tea bar called
Hinky Dinks. The name changed to Trader Vicks came in
nineteen thirty seven. It too, was popular enough so that
it opened new locations in Seattle and even pre statehood, Hawaii.
(12:00):
In nineteen thirty nine, Beach debuted a cocktail named the
Zombie at the New York World's Fair. If you never
had one of these before, The original Zombie was a
mixture of white gold and dark RUMs, juice usually line
papaya or pineapple, apricot, brandy, fulernum, and bitters. According to
his obituary in The New York Times, he invented eighty
four drinks before arriving at this fun and allegedly he
(12:23):
whipped it up to help a patron with a hangover
get through a business meeting. Yeah it didn't work, however,
now how could that be? I don't know, And that
the customer complained that it actually turned him into a
zombie made things worse, hence the name. With the outbreak
of World War Two, the Beachcomber was deployed to Europe,
(12:44):
leaving his wife in charge of the bar, and take
charge she did, growing it to a chain boasting sixteen locations.
Tiki culture boomed in the forties and fifties. Thinks in
part to the spreading of these tiki bars, which in
turn boosted the popularity of these tiki bars. Kind of
a s of t tiki bar life. Yeah, thing, people
(13:05):
really dug the escapist aspect to them the chill apps. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Also, American military humans returning from duty in the South
Pacific had gotten a little bit of a taste for
the culture there. Was a Rogers and Hammerstein musical.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
It was a whole thing. Yeah, I think I've heard
of that. In nineteen forty four, Tradervic purportedly invented the
Matai in Imeryville, California. He had some friends visiting from
Tahiti and he mixed them this proto matai combo of rum,
a seventeen year old one for this special occasion, lime
simple syrup or jatte and orange cursow to which one
(13:41):
of the inbibers exclaimed, my thairo i, meaning very good
are out of this world. And the reason he mixed
this he specifically wanted to highlight the taste of the
rum because it was special rum, so he didn't want
anything to overpower it, just kind of enhance it, right.
Tradervic never disclosed the exact recipe, which is cited as
one of the reasons we have so many bad takes
(14:02):
on my ties. Curse you Vick, Yes, curse you Vic.
And that's what Don Beach says. So going back to him,
he claims to have invented the my tie in nineteen
thirty three, so years before. Only he called it the
QB cooler, and he said that it served as the
inspiration for trader Vix My Tie. Beach says that before
(14:23):
Tradervic had trader Vix was trader Vix, he'd frequent Beach's bar,
and that he pretty much stole the recipe for the
my Tie. Trader Vic obviously disputes these claims, writing in
his nineteen forty seven trader Vick's Bartending Guide, Anyone who
says that I didn't create this drink is a dirty stinker.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Oh strong words.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Man, what a burn. The QB cooler has double the
amount of ingredients, though, including ginger syrup, orange juice, club soda,
and honey. Whoever invented it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
My don't fight folks?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, well we'll fight more later. Oh par yes, whoever
invented it? The my Tie was so well liked so
quickly that it supposedly depleted the world's supply of the
specific realm it was first made with, Ray and nephew,
seventeen year old Jamaican rum. Trader Vic came out with
an updated version of the drink in the nineteen fifties,
replacing the now rare rum with an aged molasses based
(15:21):
Martinique rum and a Jamaican rum blended together of the
drink's popularity. Author of Potions of the Caribbean, Jeff Barry
wrote of the Matai that it was less a drink
than a symbol of your Hawaiian holiday, either the one
you'd taken or the one you aspired to take. It
was paradise in a glass. Ah that does sound lovely?
(15:41):
It does. It was time though, for the my Ti
too actually make the journey to Hawaii. What Yeah. In
nineteen fifty three, trader Vick was hired by Mattson Steamship Lines,
a shipping company that helped popularize Hawaii as a vacation destination,
to craft the cocktail menus for the Royal Hawaiian and
Mowana Surfrider Hotels, which of course featured the my Tie.
(16:04):
To make the drink more appealing to tourist, Tradervic added
orange and pineapple juices for a sweeter cocktail at Waikiki's
Royal Hawaiian Hotel in nineteen fifty four, and that became
a standard, replacing the original, less sweet my Tie. Don
Beach by the Way had opened a Don the Beach
Comber on Waikiki at nineteen forty seven, so they were
kind of yeah, dovetailings. Yeah. When Hawaii became a state
(16:27):
in nineteen fifty nine, more and more tourists flooded the
islands and the demand for my ties skyrocketed. Bartenders made
them by the gallon, oh yeah, and to increase their profits,
they watered the drink down, used cheaper realm, and replaced
the lime with local pineapple juice. Some had a rum
one to fifty one float.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Which I guess we'll at least make you not care
about the quality of the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
The Mytai played a significant role in the nineteen sixty
one Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii, and in the seventies,
President Nixon was a really big fan, and he hung
out at the Trader Vicks near the White House and
even took his wife there for Valaindinne's Day in nineteen
seventy three. I love that I never would have guessed that, Like,
(17:13):
what is President Nixon's favorite drink? Clearly the my tie. Obviously,
I think I would have guessed dark and stormy. Not
sure why. Also in the seventies, Trader vic released a
bottled My Time mix and sued Don the beach Comber
for coming out with Don the Beachcomber my Time mix
that claimed on the label to be the originator wo
(17:37):
my Tie. Justice. It went to court and trader Vick
had to divulge his until then secret my Tie recipe
in a seven page document he titled Let's get the
record straight on the my Tie. He won the lawsuit.
Oh wow, Yeah, I tried to find a picture of
that bottle because that's such a what a move to
(17:58):
put the originator on there, rightoo. I couldn't find any
pictures of it. So if any of you have, oh,
if anybody has some oh my goodness, has a picture,
please send it in.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Trader Vick still had some hard feelings despite winning the
court case. However, in his nineteen seventy six Hell of
a Man's cookbook, he wrote, we originated this drink. We
made the first my Tie. We named the drink. A
lot of bastards all over the country have copied it
and copyrighted it and claimed it for their own. I
hope they get the box. They're a bunch of lousy
(18:31):
bastards for copying my drink. Wow. Yeah yeah. Had some
strong opinions.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Perhaps a lack of chill.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Perhaps should I find interesting in this whole my tie story?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Clearly why I had to drink them.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They lost the true meaning of the my.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Tie, oh man.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, they lost the original recipe and the true meaning.
There's something deep here, there is there's a deeper level
to this.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Poor trader Vic.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Okay. The verdict seems to be that Trader Vic copied
the style of the restaurant of Don the Beach Comber,
and he got the inspiration for the Myti from a
drink he liked there. But he did in fact invent
the my tie. It was different email Yeah, definitely, m hm. Yeah.
As we talked about in past Cocktail Hour episodes, in
(19:22):
the eighties, a lot of cocktails suffered the terrible fate
of corner cutting with the addition of syrups and often
overly sweetened canned juices. The Halikulani on Waikiki was just
about the only place you could find the original may tie.
Using original recipes was kind of their whole thing, and
in nineteen eighty six, New York bartender Danny de Pemphialis
(19:44):
revived the original Mytie at the Mowana Hotel, but the
price meant that it didn't stick around very long.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The price, by the way, it was five point fifty,
which I'm sure at that time was like what today's
prices are. But I in my head that's like these
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's like, give me twenty nine of those.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Tiki culture also sort of faded to the background between
the sixties and nineties, but it's come back in a
pretty big way recently. The bar at the Merchant Hotel
in Belfast, Northern Ireland, made the Guinness Book of World
Records in two thousand and seven by selling the most
expensive cocktail ever, my tie made with the seventeen year
old ray and a few rum used trader Vic's first iteration,
(20:24):
oh wow for a smooth one four hundred and seventy
five dollars a pop.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What for one for one? That's a lot more than
five point fifty.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, quite a bit. Uh the but people bought them
in the hotel ran out in less than a year.
Oh my goodness, I can't even imagine that. Well anyway,
As of two thousand and nine, Oakland, California, declared August
thirtieth my Tie Day.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh yeah, I think every day is my tie Day.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well it is here at food stuff anyway. So that's
about the history, the not so chill history of the
my Tai.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
We've got a little bit more, but first we've got
one more break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you, sponsor. So here is where I
was going to have a Lauren's Kiljoy corner about tiki
(21:26):
culture and how problematic it is. But I just really
didn't feel like doing that today, to be super honest,
I was like, can I just not talk about racism
for once? That would be really nice. So instead I'm
going to talk about cocktail umbrellas. Yay, yay, and we
can talk we can talk about the rise and fall
of tiki culture at another point in time. But okay, yeah,
(21:50):
So since you asked, Annie, I did. According to famed
tiki drink historian who we've already mentioned once in this episode,
Jeff Barry, his blogs and books blog singular and books
plural are the best. Totally check them out. The teaky
umbrella saw its first use at the Hilton Ykiki, possibly
in nineteen fifty nine. A bartender there by the name
(22:11):
of Harry Yee was looking for a suitable garnish. He
first used sticks of sugarcane for his cocktails, but found
that customers had this annoying habit of chewing on them
and then leaving them in the bar ash trays, getting
everything all sticky and requiring extra washing up at the
end of a shift.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No good.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He also tried orchids, but they were kind of persnickety,
so he started using this festive paper umbrella on a
stick that the hotel happened to have on hand. It
was probably being used as a fancy toothpick, or maybe
a plate garnish, or maybe even an inexpensive gift for
customers for use in their hair or on their hats.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
If I ever see it someone picking their teeth with
an umbrella for a little cocktail umbrella, it's gonna make
my dag.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh, I'm sure it's happened. I think if you hang
out at a Trader Vix long enough, it's almost guaranteed
homework assignment.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna photograph the evidence.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Excellent, get their table, put it on social media. Yeah great,
but we have to talk that much about science this episode.
Is there science behind the cocktail umbrella?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Is there?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Are they actually shading your drink? And protecting it from
the sun.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Just like an umbrella would do for me.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Rather, they might indeed keep a bit of direct sunlight
off of your cocktail, allowing the ice to melt more slowly,
which is great because drinks do become a bit unbalanced
as they water down from ice. Plus, according to professors
of chemistry and organic chemistry that Bonepetite magazine spoke to
in twenty fourteen, melted ice will the ice melted grather
(23:50):
will raise the temperature of a drink above that zero
degree celsius thirty two degrees fahrenheit, and thus slightly increase
the rate of alcohol evaporating out of your glass. The
protection of a paper umbrella will offer a pretty negligible effect, however,
compared to the ambient temperature of the room the table
of the glass is sitting on in your hand. So
(24:14):
so the science is about that noise. That's yes, The
scientific answer is that noise that Annie just made.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I also did a weird face and a shrugging of my.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Shoulder and a half shrug.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I have my left shoulder.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, just the left shoulder. Science exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
So that's what we have to say in this cocktail
hour about the mytai We will definitely come back and
talk about tiki culture. And also I kind of want
to do one on like you mentioned how rum kind
of has this oh yeah, stereotype college drinks around the
world almost because I think one of the reasons it
has that association is because that's what you drink in college.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And it can be so cheap and it's kind of
sweet and it's kind of feminine. And we've mentioned before
if you're filling out that bingo card, yeah, just hits it,
true it down the weird genderia. Yeah, rem drinks, so yeah, yeah,
lots of really fun episodes. To come back to it
a later.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Time, oh yeah, And that brings us to the end
of this classic episode. We hope that you enjoyed it
as much as we enjoyed doing it, and that's always
If you have any recipes, riffs, thoughts, any of that's
always appreciated. You can email us at hello at saborpod
(25:34):
dot com uh huh.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saber pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of
My Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of market things are coming
(25:57):
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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