What's in a Name?

 

Well I’ve had many a nights with intense cocktail discussion from original recipes to Tom Cruise. One subject in particular stands out just for its unique nature. The cocktail name is a very interesting subject; take for example the parallel of food. Now a steak is a steak is a steak right? It changes from sauce to cooking methods but if you have red meat it most likely will be called steak. Now a margarita for example can have many forms as well, and some will tell you if you don’t put their exact list of ingredients it’s not a margarita anymore. That being said there are records of recipes and since we are talking about the margarita take the daisy cocktail.

There were Whiskey Daisy’s, Brandy Daisy’s and Gin Daisy’s. The recipe for a Daisy is; Spirit, orange Curacao, lemon juice, and sugar (AKA Sweet and Sour). Sound familiar, here is something else most don’t know, the Spanish word for Daisy is Margarita! So is the Margarita a Tequila Daisy? I say yes but there are many that put orange juice in margaritas so does that mean its now an Orange Margarita? That’s for you to decide.

 

 

 

 

More straight forward names include the Long Island Iced Tea, made in Long Island and sometime in the 1970s by bartender Robert (Rosebud) Buttu, at the Oak Beach Inn, in the Town of Babylon, Long Island, New York. Now that name makes sense, a cocktail that looks like Iced Tea from Long Island. There are other provocative and vulgar names that in certain places can be appropriate but you don’t want to go to the Starlight atop the Sir Francis Drake hotel in San Francisco and ask for a Audios Mother Fucker, might want to order a Cable Car (created by Tony Abou-Ganim there in the 1990’s) You’ll also look a little out of place asking for a Champagne cocktail at the Double Down Saloon one of the most famous dive bars in Vegas, try an Ass Juice. There is a time and a place for everything and for Gods sake drink what you like!

 

 

            I’m going to share a little known fact about me, the first cocktail I ever created was called the 700 Club. Here is the recipe;

• .5oz Bacardi 151
• .5oz Hana Bay 151
• .5oz Stroh 80 (a 160 proof butterscotch flavored rum based Liqueur)
• .5oz Pussers Blue Rum
• .5oz Lahaina Dark rum
• .5oz Goslings Black Seal
• 1.5oz Pineapple juice
• 1.5oz Sweet and Sour

Shake and pour in a hurricane glass, garnished with 3 cherries skewered on a straw.

Sounds yummy right………..….wrong! This cocktail gets its name by adding up all the proofs on the spirits in the cocktail, it equals 702. So if you can choke this down then you were in the "Club". Go easy on me and please take into consideration, this is the year 2000 and I’m a brand new 21 year old bartender working a one of the hottest clubs in Vegas at the time named Rum Jungle. I made a lot of people happy with this libation and made a few others promise God they would never drink again.