Tiki Talk with Ben Willis: The Umbrella Story

They’re tiny… colorful… and somehow iconic.

But where did cocktail umbrellas come from… and why do they matter?

Ben Willis dives in with a drink that hits harder than it looks… and a story you didn’t expect.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

It's Friday afternoon, and it's time to light the torches for Tiki Talk on Mega Rock. Ben Willis with you. One of those symbols that has been absolutely linked with tiki design and culture, and more importantly, with cocktails is the cocktail umbrella, that little paper parasol, that when you see it sticking out to the top of a glass, stuck into a pineapple wedge or hanging over the edge of a tiki mug, just absolutely screams leisure, time, and good vibes. But where does that little cocktail umbrella come from? Uh there's differing stories. Some say that Don Beach himself actually invented it, or at least introduced it to America sometime during the 1930s. We do know that Don Beach outfitted Don the Beachcombers with things from all over the Pacific, including paper parasols from China and Japan. There's also the story that at some point Don Beach began selling paper parasols to his rival, Victor Bergeron, Trader Vicks of Victor Bergeron, in fact, and he used those up until World War II when you couldn't import them from Japan anymore, since we were at war with Japan at that time, of course. Now, it is confirmed that Harry Yi of the Hilton and Waikiki was using paper parasols in the late 1950s. That story goes that he may have been introduced to them by Don Beach when Don was in Hawaii. Harry Yi was initially using sugarcane sticks as a garage in his cocktails. But some point, for reasons unknown, by 1959 had switched over to paper parasols in his drink, and that became linked with drinks in Hawaii at the Hilton, and the rest, as they say, is history. And thanks to the explosion, of course, of tiki culture and the tiki craze in the late 1950s and early 60s, and their use in tiki bars like Trader Vic's and elsewhere across the country. To this day, if you're referring to a tropical cocktail, a lot of people just call them umbrella drinks. And one of those most excellent umbrella drinks has to be the fog cutter. Another invention of none other than Trader Vic. It was tweaked and modified over the years into a version later known as the Samoan Fog Cutter. This once again comes to us by Jeff Beach Bomberry in his remixed compendium of tiki cocktails. And the Samoan fog cutter, he says, from the 1950s, is as follows: 2 ounces of fresh lemon juice, 1 ounce of orange juice, 1 half ounce of orgâte almond syrup, 1 half ounce of brandy, 1 half ounce of your favorite gin, 1 12 ounce of Puerto Rican rum, and 1 cup or 8 ounces of crushed ice. Add everything to a blender and mix for up to 10 seconds. Pour your contents into a tall mug if you have a fog-cutter mug, otherwise, utilize a nice tall glass, pack some more ice on top, and then we're going to take some cream sherry, about a half ounce of nice cream sherry, pour it over the back of a spoon, and float it on the top of the cocktail. Garnish with a mint sprig, your favorite cocktail pick, and, hey, why not, maybe even a paper umbrella? So there you go, the Samoan fog cutter, straight from Trader Vicks in the 1950s. So until we meet on another island out there somewhere, this is Ben Willis saying Aloha on Tiki Talk. And as long as you have that little paper umbrella, you know at least your drink will be protected from the sun, even when it's 99 in the shade. It's Bon Jovi on Mega Rock!