9 Cocktail Facts to Enjoy Shaken or Stirred!

I was even more board. 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. Yeah, I mean I feel like cocktail names are so weird, right, Like white Russians had nothing to do with Russia or Mikaile burushnikof right, I mean they do have vodka, and my guess, and the same with black Russians, Like that was invented

in Belgium apparently. 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 Points Over in Ireland, so that that's kind of funny it was invented in an airport. But what's the story there,

all right? This goes back to 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 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, sir, that's Irish coffee or drinking. Yeah, if you're glad I spared you the Irish accent there, all right. 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. Let's dive in. He their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Gueshow Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof booth trying to mix himself Poos Cafe. Yeah, it's exactly what it is. 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 trick is to make sure it all SIPs good. I think that's what Trista was trying to do, but it kind of came out tan, so he just poured it out and made himself a Zema with a little red skittle at the bottom. But I think that's a less savvy cocktail, to be honest, which is amazing that Tristan found a bottle of zema. They make that anymore now,

they definite know. 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, 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 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 listened, right, He was like talking about your clothes, your week, work ethic, the fact that you can't go left on a basketball court, whatever.

And so you get all confused and flustered because you don't really know anyone named Tom Collins, and who is this guy to slander you? Right? So you asked a stranger where he saw Tom Collins last, and he directs you towards the local pub. Right, So it's like this

genius marketing trick. So a few minutes later you storm in to 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. And the thing is right, you get to meet Tom Collins. So it's like a cute little

trick and it's a nice story. And according to saucy dot com, which is a beverage sipe, 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 this tasty summary drink, which is way better than any bar fight. That's pretty cool. I'd actually wondered that one as well. A 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. Of course, yeah, I mean, isn't it funny that's something that's simple has a name instead of just like vodka with orange and the fact that 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. I guess that's super weird. I feel like I've never heard Paul Simon sing about that. Yeah, I mean there's a little bit of questioning, you know, the veracity of all of these, But the screwdriver has

a better story than this. 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. 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. That's funny, you know. I've obviously had that drink,

but I never think it's that old. Yeah. So the workers decided to make the work day a little bit more interesting by secretly adding vodka to their morning o J. 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, parsonally, because it was just a fun way to talk about drinking around your boss is like, you know, this job sure would be a little easier with a

screw driver. Well, I mean having murky origin stories. It's 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 a Triple Sex. So I've actually seen a video of the guy nicknamed Rosebud who supposedly invented it in the seventies, and he's just throwing this like equal parts of vodka, jin rom tequila and triple sec into a blender and a little bit of coal up. And it's not like the super Neat mixology video because he makes kind of a mess with the blender and everything. But you know, apparently he dubbed it a Long Island Iced tea because of where his

bar was located. But what's incredible to me, and this is all gay during the research here, is that New York isn't the only Long Island to lay claim did 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 Island, iced tea was actually the creation of this local bootlegger there. His name was Charlie old Man Bishop and old Man Bishop. One day, I suppose they got

a little creative. He took vodka, gin whiskey tequila and mixed them together with maple syrup, and then in the nine is so Ransom perfected the recipe by adding a little bit of citrus juice and 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 in this thing called Battle for the Tea where they blindfolded bar patrons and gave them each of the regions tease

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 schedule. Sounds like they've 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. But yeah, alright, Well, speaking of murky origins, why don't we talk about the Cosmopolitan, which claims two stories of its own own, actually none of which I'm guessing have to do with Sex in the City. Well, here's the weird thing is that one of them actually does. 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 had noticed that many women seemed to enjoy the shape of the classic Martini glass more than the taste of the actual drink that it came with. 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 on the show might have actually been a fun nod to cook. That's interesting, and the show actually did revitalize the cocktail from from what I know, I mean kind of the same way as Sideways got people to stop drinking more low yeah, or the way you know everybody

started drinking white Russians right after the Big Lebowski. You know, there's 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 nine and this was as a way of asserting himself at the bar that was under

racist management at the time. Now, the story goes that Murray had interviewed to be a bartender at the Cork and Clever Bar in Minneapolis earlier that 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. 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 Comic Kaze 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 the customer responds that it looks very cosmopolitan, and that's how the drink and

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 had asked him to remind him what it was, Murray would tell them that it was a Kama Kaze with cranberry juice. So bartender suggested the drink to customers, and the drink gradually spread from coast to coast. Have you ever heard that This American Life, where Sarah Kanig is talking about

her dad who's this legendary admin. He wrote the old Volkswagen thinks 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 docs and stuff, and suddenly, like the whole town was into it. He also claimed he invented thumb wrestling. I would be

so star struck, but 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. I feel we've talked about this one before, haven't we. 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 to popularize to drink. 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 to wait for me to say an Arner Palmer. So I do love that old ESPN commercial. Whether they're in this cafeteria and these two sportscasters are they're just watching is Arnold Palmer goes up to the dispenser and he fills his glass half with lemonade than half with iced tea, and then he walks away, and they go, that was awesome.

I love that. And you know, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who can't say Arnold Palmer. So like, yeah, so we should just call it an Arnie Palmy. I like that. I like it. Well, the name of the drink goes back to the late sixties and and this is when this woman happened to overhear Palmer ordering his favorite drink at a bar in Palm Springs, and she apparently was star struck. Right, she was a huge fan, 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 more official connection was made years later when Palmer licensed both his name and image to branded 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. But here's what's funny. If you want to mix up your own Arnold Palmer at home, you actually have to decide which

ratio to use. Normally, the drink is served fifty fifty, also known as a half and half to non Palmer fans. Palmer actually preferred sent tea to lemonade mix, but his wife was this total sweet tooth, and so she'd use sweet tea and lemonade, and her versions called a wind 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 would just

feel like, that's in fact every where should know. 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 Time Genius, where we're talking drink origins. Now I'm gonna stick with your mocktail theme and talk about the grandmother of all

mock tails, 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 in the late nineteen thirties, and in true cocktail fashion, there is some disagreement on where and when the drink originated. There was this Beverly Hills restaurant called Chasen's that claims to have invented the drink on Temple's tenth birthday so she'd have something special to

sit 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 places claimed they invented it for her, Shirley Temple actually wasn't a fan of the drink. She reportedly found it to be much too sweet for her taste, which is amazing.

It feels like such an insult coming from a child. 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. And the company's actually eventually

back down. That's pretty amazing. I mean, I do know she was super smart, right, like she was supposedly like this ambassador or diplomat. Yeah, that's true, and I believe it was to Czechoslovakia. But since I did a Shirley Temple fact, I think I should tackle its sibling cocktail

while I'm at it, And that's the Roy Rogers. So one of my favorite scenes on Dirty Rock is when Alec Baldwin's at this far and he orders this really fruit fru 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 know why that line is so funny to be but the idea that we need like a coke version of the Shirley

Temple to appeal to boys is just so dumb. Yeah, you're right, it's pretty ridiculous. And 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 mocktail is interesting is that it's also named for Rory Rogers, you know, the cowboy actor who later owned his own fast food place.

But apparently Rogers was a teetotaler, and I always thought that it was given the cowboy name 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. That's interesting that he actually liked the drink wheer Shirley Temple. Hey, but you know, I 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 TIQ culture for a while now, and we'll definitely get to a game, don't worry. But this story comes from him. So most people associate the my Taie with Hawaii, likely because of the name, which means good or nice Intohitian, but the drink was actually the creation of this Oakland bartender named Victor burger On. He's also known as Traitor Vic, you might know, and this

was back in 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 on the menu, but he really wasn't confident about it, so he kind of stuck the my Time 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, there all these different versions of the drink on 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 ma Taie 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 juice, and it's topped with freshman. Oh. I like that. Yeah, I like the fact that things are getting even more wild out there. I think Tristan pulled out as that his third Sema of the day

four pack. You know, I feel like we've covered a lot today that drinks shouldn't be gender that you know, drinking on the job was a thing that happened with screw drivers, sex in the city, Arnold Palmer's thinnest. But I do feel like the fact I like the most was the one about Tom Collins talking trash about you last night in a bar. That was pretty good. I agreed, I will not stand for it, So let's take Kristen

and go find Tom instead of straight. But you know, Gave actually texted me right before this, and he said, I'm going to 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 run off, and then completes the drink by ringing a used bar rag straight into a glass, which is so Grossot. 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 fact. It really makes it other 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 they've got. 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 there are new favorite double A team and keep those facts coming, but from all of us here at part time, Genius gave Tristan, Will and me thank you so much for listening to the b