Given this week has seen the first round of voting in the French Presidential election, some may accuse me of having jumped gun two weeks ago when I ran with the only cocktail that combines France and politicians.

Fear not, dear Reader, this week we are back to France for another IBA Contemporary Classic, the French 75.

Like most cocktails, its history is disputed.

My favourite theory involves a World War I flying ace named Gervais Raoul Lufbery.

Now, if you thought that “Flying Ace” was a term used only by Snoopy, you are wrong (although in good company…), but it refers to a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft in combat – usually 5 is the qualifying number to become an ace.

So Lufbery. He was French, then American, and flew for both countries.

He also had two pet lions – Whiskey and Soda. Soda would try to maul anyone other than Lufbery who came near her.

I  like to think of him as a French accented Lord Flashheart, played by the late, great Rik Mayall in Blackadder.

Twenty minutes or not, there was a fairly high mortality rate amongst WWI combat pilots so I have no doubt Lufbery would have had a sense of urgency about all he drank.

So it seems entirely plausible that a high-flyin, lion-ownin’ ace might come in from a mission needing a stiff drink and demand that he be given something a little stronger than champagne.

Chuck in some cognac, lemon juice, sugar syrup and shake it up and top up with champagne.

Hey presto, French 75 – named after the 75mm Howitzer field gun used by the French and Americans in WWI.

Lufbery died at age 33 in May 1918 – details are conflicting but it seems he may have unbuckled his seat belt to allow him to fix something on his plane mid-air and then fell out. He may have survived but for the fact he was impaled on a metal fence. Gruesome.

So I’m giving the cocktail to Lufbery.

The original recipe anyway. The IBA recipe calls for gin instead of cognac.

A gin variation may indeed pre-date Lufbery’s efforts, with Charles Dickens being known to serve guests gin and a Champagne Cup back as far back as 1867. The Champagne Cup was made up of sugar, citrus and champagne.

But it wasn’t called the French 75, so again we can reward our flying ace.

Our panel One-for-the-Road-tested both and I can report that each has its merits.

Sacrilegious though it may seem, you could substitute a decent sparkling wine for the champagne with any significant diminution of the end product too.

While it deserves greater fame, the French 75 doesn’t show up much in popular culture.

However, it is one of only two cocktails mentioned by name in 1942 film Casablanca (and if you want to read the article that argues, successfully in my view, that this is the greatest movie about a cocktail bar ever made – read THIS FABULOUS PIECE from Josh Stein at eater.com. He does give the cocktail to bartender Harry McElhone but I don’t think Harry had any lions so clearly Lufbery is a better tale).

So, Casablanca.

Yvonne, after being rejected and then cut-off (booze-wise) by former lover and bar owner Rick, shows up with her new Nazi boyfriend and they order French 75s.

And then there’s a fight.

That Rick himself refers to his bar as a “gin joint” may lead us to assume that it was the gin version that gets served up, but it isn’t actually specified (and much cognac is drunk so it could quite easily have been the Lufbery Variation).

Yvonne’s role is small but important.

After seeking warmth in the arms of a Nazi, when she hears La Marseillaise, she jumps to her feet, singing and crying, calling out Viva La France! in the final bars. It is a brilliantly complex scene that captures so much of the moral difficulties that faced people in WWII.

Remember that Casablanca when written, produced and released by 1942, so they didn’t yet have the benefit of history to tell them how this whole shebang was going to play out.

Actress Madeleine Lebeau who played Yvonne died last year May 1, aged 92. She was the last surviving cast member.

Lebeau was born in France and escaped to USA with her Jewish husband when they saw things going rapidly south. Upon arrival, she found she had been sold a dodgy visa and had to go to Canada on a bridging visa before making her way to Hollywood.

She was a refugee, as were many of the actors in the bar scenes in Casablanca.

If you haven’t seen it, I’m not going to spoil it by telling you that it’s about trying to get out of warzones and people in very stylish clothes facing moral dilemmas about jeopardising their own interests and safety to protect others.

This film, made so many years ago, has echoes of a great new film by Director and Writer David Roach, The Surgeon and the Soldier, about Dr Munjed Al Muderis. (You can watch it for free HERE).

Al Muderis fled Iraq after being directed – at gunpoint – to mutilate people or face his own death.

He paid an Indonesian people smuggler to get him across the seas in a small boat and was put in a modern Government-run concentration camp (officially named “Immigration Reception and Processing Centres”) and referred to as “982” for 10 months before being allowed to live in Australia.

Once he got released into the general community, 982 set about subversive activities such as paying income tax and pioneering osseointegration surgery which is allowing amputees – particularly returned British service personnel – to walk again.

This made Prince Harry visit Australia, so we’ll chalk Dr Munjed Al Muderis up as a “good Aussie” then hey?

I’m a cocktail writer, I don’t claim to have the answers to complex policy issues and am somewhat persuaded by moves that will dissuade desperate people from attempting dangerous journeys where so many have died, but for fuck’s sake, can we not call people by their NAMES when they are in our protection? Can we not assume that they are good, desperate people who need safe haven, rather than assuming they are a lower form of life?

Due process with humanity anyone?

But Yvonne.

I don’t who I would have been in WWII.

I would love to think I would be the brave and clear-eyed Victor Laszlo, or even the cynical Rick Blaine, but I suspect most of us would have been Yvonne.

Yvonne who was scared and likely under-estimating the situation the world was in, but when the moment presented, we’d probably rise to our feet in solidarity and sing passionately and mean it with every part of our beings, but we’d need a Victor or a Munjed to show us the way.

And bloody hell, wouldn’t we need a strong drink after that?

Well with a big merci beaucoup to Major Lufbery, we have exactly the right cocktail.

Viva la Soixante Quinze!

I came to this week’s cocktail confused and trepidatious.

The Stinger is an IBA Unforgettable, a category that usually brings me nought but delight.

Negroni. Martini. Old Fashioned. Rusty Nail. The Unforgettables make for a happy hunting ground for Shake, Stir, Muddle.

The Stinger, however, appeared challenging.

Reliable sources tell me it was likely invented by Reginald Vanderbilt in 1923.

A rich toff with a love of the afternoon Cocktail Hour (at least until his death from alcohol-related liver failure in 1925), Reggie whipped up a Stinger in his impressive home bar and it promptly became a Society favourite.

Fancy. Posh.

Certainly it contains Cognac, definitely swanky plonk. But what of its only other ingredient?

These pages have documented what an exciting time the late 1980s were for those of us making our first forays in legal drinking.

My nascent palate favoured alcohol that tasted nothing like alcohol – Island Cooler, Southern Comfort with lemonade and the Holy Grail – Crème de Menthe.

It tasted like a Mint Pattie and could be thrown back with gay abandon in the brief minutes between cracking the seal on a bottle and the violent vomiting of that which had previously been so pleasing.

Fancy? Not on your life.

So what of the Stinger?

Can a cocktail containing Crème de Menthe – no matter how well-balanced by Cognac – really be considered a stamp of one’s posh credentials?

As usual, we look to the Silver Screen for our answers.

Exhibit A

The year was 1988. One of my closest school friends had just lost her mother to cancer, so we loaded our permed heads and Portman’s jodhpur-clad tails into my hatchback and headed out. Let’s see a movie, I said. Take your mind off things for a bit, I said. Maybe have a couple of laughs, I said.

Here, this movie looks good. It’s got Bette Midler in it, that’ll be funny.

That movie was, of course, Beaches.

This tale of a lifelong female friendship cut short by a type of cancer that left you curiously good-looking in your final days was just the remedy for my friend’s raw grief.

Setting aside how shit I am at choosing appropriate entertainment for the recently-bereaved, the movie gives up important clues as to the poshness of this cocktail.

Midler’s Ceece Bloom sports an expertly-bedazzled cold-shoulder chambray ensemble
and voluminous red perm in this important scene of reconciliation where Barbara Hershey’s Hillary reveals her pregnancy.

In need of fortification, a Stinger is ordered.

As we know, sleek brunette pony-tail sporter Hillary was the posh one in Beaches. She does not order a cocktail. Ceece is most definitely the NOT POSH one. But she is the one to order a Stinger.

1-0

Exhibit B

1983’s Gorky Park.

Russian cop William Hurt orders a Stinger. New York cop Brian Dennehy tells him that it’s a whore’s drink. Implying that’s a bad thing.

Hard to tell which actor would win in the snazzy stakes since Dennehy has Emmys and Tonys and Hurt has an Academy Award and a BAFTA, but we’ll give it to Dennehy in this instance because it was a Cold War movie and he was playing the American.

2-0.

Exhibit C

One of my favourite movies, 1956’s High Society.

As the name suggests, this is about posh people doing posh things in posh houses. With lots of drinking.

Set in Newport, Rhode Island, a playground for the uber-wealthy, Grace Kelly’s character Tracy Samantha Lord gets hammered the night before her nuptials and has a cracking hangover as she greets her wedding day.

A Stinger is handed to her by ex-husband Mr CK Dexter Haven, played by Bing Crosby, with an assurance that it’ll ease the sting – as she contemplates the shocking possibility of her wedding eve indiscretion with journalist Mike Connor.

Connor is a journalist from Spy magazine, sent reluctantly and against his journalistic integrity, to cover Lord’s society wedding. Connor is played by Frank Sinatra.

That’s right, the same Sinatra who in 1974 referred to journalists in Australia as “parasites” and the female journalists as “hookers” who he “wouldn’t pay more than a buck-and-a-half for”. Delightful.

Just to be clear, the journalists were covering his tour of Australia. Doing their jobs then.

Down Under we just love to show fancy American celebrities who’s boss by grounding their planes, just as our erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, did for Johnny Depp and his illegal immigrant pooches in 2015.

In Sinatra’s case, Trade Union leaders showcased their real value by collaborating to protect workers’ dignity (rather than renovating their homes with Union fees) and grounded Frank’s Fokker.

Enter one Robert J Hawke, Head of the ACTU who negotiated what was not quite an apology from the Chairman of the Boors, but an acknowledgement that his comments had been inappropriate.

Anyway, Ol’ Blue Eyes left, vowing never to return.

This principled boycott of Australia lasted until a million bucks was thrown at him to play
at Queensland’s Sanctuary Cove in January 1988. Sanctuary Cove, to quote the wonderful Clive James (as we all should, as often as we possibly can), was carved out of a swamp near Surfers Paradise so the well-heeled could make themselves safe from the less well-heeled.

Much like Newport, Rhode Island in concept.

But just so not in reality (and it’s worth finding an hour to watch this Clive James show on the opening of Sanctuary Cove and Sinatra’s concert – as well as having Richard Wilkins’ hair in all its mulleted glory at 25 mins, the vulgar Mike Gore tells you everything about Queensland in the 1980s).

But back to The Stinger.

Since it wasn’t consumed by the working-class Connors but definitely did feature in a movie called High Society, that’s one mark in the posh stakes FOR the Stinger.

2-1.

Exhibit D

Finally, nothing says posh like classical music.  Apparently Rachmaninoff himself,
otherwise a teetotaller, used to down a nip of Crème de Menthe to steady his nerves when playing the technically-demanding piano score on the 24^th variation of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

While not a Stinger, this is a definite quaver in favour of the posh-cred of the dodgy ingredient in the Stinger.

2-2. Final score.

And so we approached our One-for-the-Road Test of The Stinger with no definitive answer as to whether drinking it makes us actual aristocrats.

Leaving only taste with which to measure its worth.

Fortunately, a quick review of the ingredients before pulling out my shaker, led me to discover that there is such a thing as white Crème de Menthe.

So mixing up the 5 parts Cognac to the 2 parts Crème de Menthe skirted the virulent green nostalgia of my early drinking days. Still, tasting a drop did evoke that just-brushed-your-teeth feeling that while not unpleasant, has no place in a cocktail glass.

Shake with ice, garnish with fresh mint.

First we drink with the eye.

It pleases. White Crème de Menthe blends nicely with the Cognac to ensure this looks like a grown-up cocktail.

But the taste?

Also pleasing. Surprisingly so. Take it really easy with your Crème de Menthe pour here, it would be easy to overpower this cocktail, but there is a surprising balance and complexity in the flavours when blended correctly.

The IBA calls it an After Dinner Cocktail.  SSM had it before dinner – as Vanderbilt likely intended, Ms Tracy Samantha Lord downed one in the morning and Ceece Bloom mid-afternoon.

I’d say any of those times are appropriate for this cocktail.

Cheers!

So Shake, Stir, Muddle is soon to become required reading for Australia’s Diplomatic Corps.*

Not for nothing either. Where else are you going to get tips that only diplomats with the skills of Boris Johnson can confidently claim?

Like this: When sharing a drink in a foreign country, instead of repeating the toast your hosts are offering, for a genuine ice-breaker, try shouting an obscene name for male genitalia.

More on that later.

First, the weather.

For several weeks the blossoms have been heralding the arrival of Spring.

Naturally, thoughts are turning to the life-affirming rituals of modern Australia; scheduling hair removal and purchasing anti-histamines.

And shifting our drinking patterns away from the heavier cocktails of winter.

But in Australia, we really lack a drinking tradition that appropriately marks the season.

Unlike the Japanese who celebrate Spring by gathering under the cherry blossoms for Hanami – literally “flower viewing”.

I don’t know what the Japanese word for “getting riotously pissed at a picnic under a thick layer of pink foliage” is but I imagine it wouldn’t be as pretty as Hanami so they stuck with that instead of aiming for more truth in advertising.

Everyone should experience Hanami at least once and sake is the preferred beverage for complete cultural immersion.

In spite of this connection, sake is tricky for SSM because there isn’t an IBA Official Cocktail that calls for it. But a policy exception has been made (without any reference to a democratic process) and we have One-for-the-Road Tested a sake cocktail.

One reason for this departure from policy is a couple of traditions associated with sake in Japan that are consistent with our ethos here at SSM.

Like, don’t pour your own sake. Your job is to keep an eye on your companions’ drinks and to top them up. Their job is to keep an eye on your drink. It’s very sociable and convivial.

I like that.

And drink less, but drink good.

Truth be told, I don’t adore sake so I was a little apprehensive about trying sake-based cocktails. Sake is also difficult from a 1980s movie perspective because it just doesn’t offer the fodder of some of the cocktail tie-ins we have delighted in with past cocktails.

But soldier on we will (and HERE is a David Bowie Sake ad from the very early 1980s so we aren’t completely neglecting the SSM promise).

So this weekend we tried the Sake-Tini.

In spite of SSM’s oft-stated aversion to anything anointing itself with the “Tini” suffix, the Saketini is gin based and to be fair (something we are inconsistently interested in), the Martini is the SSM Tasting Panel’s favourite cocktail and therefore the one we feel best able to judge.

Using the first recipe we could find on Google, we mixed up a 50:50 gin (we used excellent young Sydney brand Poor Tom’s Fool Proof) and sake cocktail. Now, 50:50 is not our preferred ration of gin to vermouth, but it was important we give the sake a chance to shine.

And the verdict?

Surprisingly tolerable. There’s a slight nuttiness you don’t get with vermouth but it is not unpleasant.

For the second round, we went with a ratio closer to our preferred gin to vermouth ratio and were equally pleased. If there is ever a vermouth emergency and we have only gin and sake (and olives), we’ll be just fine.

Now some may be thinking that this is because sake and vermouth are similar because they are both wines.

But you wouldn’t, would you?

See while we know vermouth is a fortified wine, in spite of what people say, sake is NOT a rice wine. Sake’s manufacturing process is more like brewing beer than making wine – just try stomping a vat of dry rice sometime if you doubt me (but store it like wine – it only keeps for a couple of days after opening so keep it in the fridge or better yet, try to get through the bottle on the night you open it).

No, sake is produced in much the same way it has been for about 1000 years, just adding a few more women into the process now that we’ve all worked out that the oestrogen doesn’t actually change the flavour at all (der).

But something sake does now that is very cool is rebuild lives.

Earlier this year, Fukushima Prefecture became Japan’s leading region for sake production. If Fukushima seems familiar, it’s because you heard it was hit hard by an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear accident in 2011. That’s some really shit luck.

But local sake manufacturers – usually businesses too small to have earthquake insurance – were also local employers and were urged to get back to production as soon as possible after the March 11 earthquake. So some were back up and running within two days.

There was a lag in sales since everyone was scared of possible contamination of the product, but unlike wine, where the grapes have to be grown locally, the rice from sake can come from anywhere. Most Japanese sake is made with rice from the west coast of Japan.

So the Japanese people turned their drinking preferences back to sake to help small businesses and families rebuild after the earthquake.

Drinking for social good.

I like that.

And in blind tastings at this year’s 104th Annual Japan Sake Awards, the Fukushima Sake producers took out more gold medals than any other region.

A small sample of bottle-shops in Sydney didn’t yield a lot of success in getting Fukushima Sake but we did find an Australian-made Sake. Go-Shu from Penrith made by Sun Masamune from Australian rice, but exporting to Japan and allowed to call itself Japanese Sake.

Whichever you drink though, let’s all make a pact to NEVER have a Sake Bomb. Please?

This troglodytic custom involves balancing a shot of warm sake on two chopsticks over a glass of beer. Then you count down from 3 (presumably since Sake Bomb drinkers would struggle to count backwards from 10) and then bang the table so the shot drops into the beer and you down both quickly.

Maybe a good solution for crappy beer and crappy sake, but why would you bother with either?

And when you consider that the Sake Bomb was likely invented by American soldiers in post WWII Japan, the name seems as culturally inappropriate as another drink atrocity – Guinness with a Bailey’s shot dropped in it which is called an Irish Car Bomb. Nice.

New SSM rule: We don’t drink cocktails that celebrate death and suffering.

Instead we’ll open our minds to sake cocktails. At least once.

But before you head off to buy your bottle of sake, that toasting tip.

From someone who knows.

In cocktail diplomacy, when you raise a glass to wish your companions good health,
perhaps stick with the traditional “Cheers” or the Japanese “Kanpai”, rather than opting for the Italian “Cin Cin”.

Because apparently shouting “Cock” in Japanese when someone toasts you is a little
alarming.

Live and learn hey?

Cheers!

*Rumour status only

I’m often asked what cocktail I would recommend for children.

Actually I’ve never been asked that, but if I was, I know what I would answer.

Firstly, I would say that cocktails are not for children. Yes I would.

Then, apropos of nothing, I would mention the Mojito.

The IBA lists this long drink amongst its “Contemporary Classics” despite it potentially being one of the world’s oldest cocktails, possibly dating back as far as 16th century Cuba.

Like many cocktails, “El Draque” as it was originally called in honour of Sir Francis Drake, it appears to have been created to cover the taste of the alcohol.

No need to dissect Drake’s interest in cocktails, other than to say there was dysentery and scurvy involved and we all know cocktails are necessary to stay in tip top health.

So, Mojitos.

The Mojitos are neither too sweet nor too alcohol-y in flavour to offend most palates.

Hence they are a good “starter” cocktail.

They are easy to make at home, although definitely better suited to a summer afternoon than a cold winter night in Sydney.

Muddle 6 mint sprigs (spearmint if you can) with 2 teaspoons of sugar and 90 mL lime juice.
Add splash of soda water and fill glass with cracked ice. Pour 120 mL rum and top with soda water.
Stir well

I’m going to add some fresh ginger to my muddling next time too.

The IBA recipe calls for White Cuban Rum and the name Bacardi has been synonymous with the Mojito.

But Bacardi is no longer a Cuban rum.

Bacardi was established in Cuba in 1862 and its signature bat dates back as far. A good omen apparently.

(This was clearly before the Lyssavirus which will kill you if you are bitten or scratched by an infected bat. So don’t touch goddamned filthy bats – dead or alive – in Australia and instil the fear of God into your children about bats and if anyone does get bitten or scratched, tell a doctor immediately and get on the medication cos’ then you won’t die. Ok? Good).

Anyhoo, in 1960, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary regime in Cuba seized all of Bacardi’s assets and they had to make a treacherous voyage across the sea to Miami.

Castro, who now looks like someone’s lovely old uncle, was responsible for thousands of deaths as boats would ram-raid smaller vessels full of refugees, and made the rest of his populace suffer in poverty for many decades.

This is the “charming” Cuba everyone is desperate to see before it changes.

Remember if you go there that what is slipping away are the vestiges of oppression. You’ll feel less sad about losing the charm that way. Read THIS great article for a Cubano’s view on the matter.

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway drank a lot of Mojitos in Cuba, but reliable sources – including Philip Greene in his tome “To Have and Have Another”, a book that specifically addresses the issue of what Hemingway drank – believe this to be untrue.

Hemingway left Cuba in 1959, a year before those plucky Bacardis fled and set up shop again – the distillery is now in Ricky Martin-land – and their white rum is taking over the world in the way that Castro and his ideology didn’t.

Apart from Halle Berry emerging from the ocean (in Spain masquerading as Cuba) in an orange bikini in THIS SCENE from Die Another Day, to meet Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond being super-creepy in talking about Mojitos and “the view”, the Mojito is surprisingly absent from popular culture.

Except Miami Vice

I’m advised – but won’t bother checking myself – that the Mojito features heavily in the 2006 movie of the same name. I have as much interest in this remake as I did in the Footloose remake. Some art just needs to be left alone, on its pedestal. Respected and revered.

Miami Vice is one of those.

If you missed it, it was about two flawed but dedicated cops trying to tackle the drug barons in Miami in the 1980s. They weren’t undercover but never wore uniforms, just uniformly-awesome clothes, and drove Ferraris and had fancy boats like Stefan (on cops’ pay – hmmm).

It was remarkable for many things:

• It launched the careers of so many actors that I can’t list them here – but go to this link to be amazed
  

• It had very high production values (and an implausible pet alligator – bonus points if you can name it without Googling – the answer is at the end of the post)
• Everyone managed to keep a straight face when Sheena Easton played Don Johnson’s primary love interest in spite of him never having once caught a morning train

• And the fashion. The extraordinary fashion. Which influenced everyone everywhere.

Including apparently me. Here is a late 1980s photo of me and my brother which I can only assume we intended to serve as the album cover for our upcoming boy band. Perhaps we would have been called “Brows”.

In the final episode, we see Crockett and Tubbs (least sexy combination of surnames ever) farewelling a fine partnership. Ricardo Tubbs was heading back to The Bronx and Sonny Crockett, well he was off to somewhere where the water would be warm, the hair products plentiful and the drinks – in all likelihood Mojitos – would be cold.

Perfect.

But even Miami Vice didn’t give us a Mojito song. There have been a few, terrible attempts – Google Kate Yanai or Alan Ritchson if you have too much time on your hands (actually, don’t) – but I think we can nominate our own.

The 1980s was great for music and fashion. But look, it wasn’t perfect.

We still had the Cold War.

And we had to pretend everyone was straight all the time even though none of us really believed it.

Fortunately we have moved on from a lot of that now and the world, while still being shit in many ways, is mostly better than the 1980s.

But there is a creative casualty that I would like to resurrect from the era.

In 1986, Elton John donned his natty boater and sat in the back of his convertible Rolls Royce (gag), lamenting a love that could never be while handing her the world’s best passport photo.

Nikita was beautiful.

But a Commie.

A soldier on the wrong side of history (and also a woman, but at this stage, I think Elton was still notionally married to a woman so we all went along with it even faced with evidence such as the almost unbearable awkwardness of the slow dance at 3:40).

To my untrained eye, she appeared to also be a barely competent border guard (but later reveals hair that could have made her the third member of “Brows”).

So I’d like to reclaim this song.

Let’s change “Nikita” to “Mojito” and give this cocktail an anthem and give this musical gem a resurrection.

“Oh Mojito is it cold?….”

Cheers!

*Elvis – that’s how cool they were.

I know you rely upon me to cut through all this red tape and tell you when to celebrate important dates on the cocktail calendar, but I have failed you.

July 10 passed without fanfare. Not because I didn’t notice, but because it just felt like a worn out recording, of a favourite song.

Yes, with apologies for the ear-worm, it was International Pina Colada Day.

Pina Colada comes from Puerto Rico and not one, but two Governors have deemed that it was invented under the swaying palms at San Juan’s Caribe Hilton.

This is a country that in 1978 declared the Pina Colada to be its national drink, so who are we to argue?

A word here about Puerto Rico.

It isn’t actually a country, it’s an Unincorporated Territory of the USA. I have an expensive Masters degree in International Relations which affords me an excellent opportunity to segue into a lengthy explanation of what that means, but would rather focus on Puerto Rico’s most important export, Enrique Martin Morales.

Ricky Martin, Christmas gift to the world, was delivered on December 24, 1971.

This singer, actor, humanitarian and apparently author who implored us to shake our Bon-Bons is second only to George Michael in world-beating handsomeness and whiteness of teeth. And probably in island ass-riding that we covered HERE.

1971 is also the year that Kingsley Amis published his first book on drinking, recently re-released in Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis which I’m reading now.

As both writer and drinker, it makes me feel simultaneously inadequate but excited by the possibilities.

This tome, as well as revealing much about booze and language mastery, tells me that Sir Kingsley was tolerant of champagne, but as a nice breakfasty drink.

I suspect he was not into yoga, nor would he have been into health food and I know he was sporting much more than half a brain. However, without a direct response to Rupert Holmes’ 1979 masterpiece on the glamour of adultery (HERE), I can only surmise that Sir Kingsley would have dealt with it mercilessly.

One clue comes in his writings on the Pina Colada itself.

He refers to it as an “atrocity”, a “disgusting concoction…made by pouring…something called Malibu which describes itself as tropical coconut laced with light Jamaican rum, and filling up with a semblance of pineapple juice…”

Now to be fair, Sir K (as he would have been ok for me to call him since had we met, we would have been best friends) had clearly not had the benefit of tasting a proper Pina Colada, because there is simply no call for Malibu.

Muddlers who came to The Bronx with me know that I know a thing or two about Malibu and Pineapple and that it is actually a Staten Island Ferry.

True to our form here at Shake, Stir, Muddle, we will look to the International Bartenders Association for the official recipe. The IBA recipe does not include Malibu and nor does any self-respecting bartender have a need for it in anything except the drink I pioneered in the late 1980s (henceforth to be referred to as the Staten Island Hillbilly).

In this more cocktail-enlightened decade, the Pina Colada is hard to find on menus. Even in Hawaii, where one would suspect the combination of sun, Dole Pineapple Plantations, water-based yoga and regular tropical rain to get caught in would put the PC back in hot demand, 3 out of 4 places we tried did not have it on their cocktail menu.

The one that did have it – the delightful Hy’s Steak House in Waikiki – still has menu
items that would not have been out of place in any fancy restaurant in the 1970s.

Think prawn cocktails, oysters Kilpatrick, but sadly no deep-fried Camembert.

Yes, the Pina Colada seems to have peaked in 1979.

Except for Brisbane and for me.

For us it peaked in 1987.

Brisbane in the 1980s was a bit like somewhere good in the 1950s.
Our biggest local celebrities were a smart-arsed hand puppet named Agro (which incidentally, I screen-tested to be the side-kick for – I got down to the last two and they went with a blonde) and a hairdresser named Stefan*.

Stefan had a chain of hairdressing salons AND a series of infomercials that opened the eyes of Brisbane ladies – and gentlemen – to their beautiful possibilities that existed just the length of teasing comb away.

Stefan also opened Jo-Jo’s on Queen Street Mall. Jo Jo’s was (and is) a bit like a fancy food court but in early 1980s Queensland, it seemed impossibly glamorous. It still uses the same tagline “Meet you at Jo Jo’s”.

In my first year of University, we took heed of that tagline and discovered frozen Pina Coladas on Thursday afternoons at just 2 for $4. This was in 1987, the year that The Bold and the Beautiful first aired on Australian television, an undeniably exciting time to be alive.

Love You Brisbane.

And on reflection, I think that the Pina Colada may be The Bold and the Beautiful of cocktails. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously, it also isn’t about Malibu and is really, really white.

That Ricky Martin did not appear in The Bold and Beautiful is a missed opportunity for us all, but I have two happy facts to impart;

1. Ricky did have a role on General Hospital for three years (so same same really – and I’ve got $17 that says he’s had Stefan’s ladies tell him how to manage his curly hair)

2. Fellow Puerto Rican, Erik Estrada did appear on Bold (as you are welcome to refer to it when you are in the know).

Cosmic symmetry.

Millennials may be interested to learn that Erik Estrada was an international sex-symbol.

It was a confusing time for us all. Too many Pina Coladas perhaps. Everyone else needs to know that Erik was such an awesome cop in CHiPs that he became one in REAL LIFE.

Anyway, Rupert Holmes may try to lay claim to popularising the Pina Colada in this era, but a full year before his creepy Ashley Madison precursor song came out, Warren Zevon saw a Werewolf drinking the cocktail at Trader Vic’s in London.

A full year.

Yet the Holmes song continues to carry the weight of Pina Colada attention, popping up in many movies over the last two decades.

One of those movies is Bewitched.

Will Ferrell usually can’t displease me (if you haven’t seen Stepbrothers, you must), but this was appalling.

I travelled to Perth overnight for work in 2005 and had to endure this as the in-flight movie in both directions.

Another interesting historical fact for the Millennials – back in the day there was one TV screen to be shared among rows and rows of passengers and what was on, was on.

Bewitched. With Nicole Kidman. Twice in two days. That is bad luck.

Let’s erase that disappointment by focusing instead on its inspiration, the charming Bewitched TV series that ran from 1964 to 1972.

Based largely around a woman’s efforts to host cocktail parties for her husband’s boss, the central premise was that if your husband is threatened by your magical powers, hilarity will ensue if you confine yourself to preparing the high-balls and fondue the mortal way.

It had a great supporting cast but it was Elizabeth Montgomery’s show.

Not only was Montgomery talented enough to play some of her own supporting cast, she was an early gay-rights advocate in Hollywood and one of the first celebrities to advocate for AIDS patients.

And when she was dying of cancer in 1995, she asked for the contents of her IV drip to be replaced with a certain cocktail.

Yep.

So for me, that’s reason enough to stage a late International Pina Colada Day – to have that drink for her.

And here’s the verdict.

You’ll love it. It’s delicious, super-fattening (whatever, everyone can afford to have one), kinda daggy and desperately in need of a musical makeover.

But if you close your eyes and take a sip, you could be livin’ La Vida Loca on the white sands of Puerto Rico.

And (apart from the Zika Virus) who wouldn’t want that?

Cheers!

*Stefan came to Australia from Lebanon as a teenager, did his hairdressing apprenticeship while learning English at night school and has gone on to employ thousands of people, pay many millions of dollars in taxation and indeed revolutionise hair-dressing in Queensland. I would not be one bit surprised if Pauline Hanson herself had used Stefan’s services.