Don The Beachcomber

Whenever I drive down Pacific Coast Highway to go surfing, I pass Don the Beach Combers restaurant. Don's is not really new like most would think, the history of the Don's goes back to the 1930s. The Founder  was born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt in Limestone County Texas in 1907 and left home in 1926 and traveled around the word including the islands of the Caribbean and the South Pacific. He was a former bootlegger during prohibition  and in 1934 opened up Don's Beachcomber cafe in Hollywood and a later changed the name to Don the Beachcomber along with his name to Don Beach. Don's gained popularity due to it's tropical decorated theme and wonderful tiki drinks made from various rums and Don's own secret recipe.

Don had several exotic drinks that patrons loved such as the Zombie, Navy Grog, Tahitian Rum Punch and many other cocktails along with what customers considered wonderful cuisines but were nothing more than standard Cantonese dishes served with flair. There were several chains of Don's across the country with the help of his wife in the 1940's and 1950's but his competitor Trader Vic's ( another Tiki themed restaurant) had more locations then Don's and both of them claimed they invented the Mai Tai.

Gantt Divorced his wife and business partner in the 1950s and because she had control over the restaurants he wasn't allowed to open any more locations in the United States so moved to Hawaii before Statehood to continue his operation. He settled in Waikiki and opened up his Polynesian Village and International Marketplace in Honolulu and had his office up in the center of a giant Banyan tree. He also built an elaborate houseboat in hopes it would catch on as floating housing in Hawaii but it never did and he lived and retired in it Moorea. It was destroyed  later after several hurricanes and Don died later in Honolulu.

There's been a revival of the restaurant since the early 2000s starting in Disney's California Adventure but no alcohol was served along with the newer Don the Beachcomber in Huntington Beach, CA. Unfortunately I've been to Don's in Huntington Beach and tried the Mai Tia and Zombie and  they seem to be missing correct ingredients. I've used recipes from vintage cocktail books that are more flavorful. On the other hand, Don used a "secrete recipe" that he would change from time to time so no one may really know what his original recipe for his drinks are. I have one recipe for a Zombie I use which I find is very tasty and after serving it to a friend of mine a few days ago he now realizes why they call it a Zombie, because he felt like one afterwards.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

John Apodaca
john@daddyosmartinis.com

Don the Beachcombers Zombie 


1 Tsp brown sugar
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz Gold Puerto Rican Rum
1 oz 151 - proof Demerar Rum from Guyana
1 oz White Puerto Rican Rum
1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz passion fruit juice
1 dash angostura bitters

Dissolve the brown sugar in the lemon juice and combine it with the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and serve it in a collins glass over ice.

Carrie A Nation The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher

The recent primary election results are a fine example of woman who are movers and shakers in society. There was one many have forgotten who headed the temperance movement at the end of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries named Carrie A. Nation. She was known for making a point of her cause by entering an alcohol serving establishment with a hatchet and destroying the bar.

Nation was a large woman almost six feet tall, 175 pounds and a stern countenance and described herself as "a bulldog running along the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn't like." Many of Nations family members suffered from mental illnesses and her mother had a delusion that she was Queen Victoria. Nation was first married to Charles Gloyd who was a severe alcoholic and the two divorced after the birth of the her daughter. She married a second time to David Nation who was a minister, news paper editor and attorney and had a try at running a hotel.

Later Nation and her husband moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas where David Nation found a job as preacher in a local church. Carry there started her work in the temperance movement and would greet bartenders in front of saloons with "good morning destroyer of men's souls". She began to pray for direction and it's said she heard from a voice telling her to Go to KIOWA and to take something in her hands and smash them. Responding to her revelation, Nation gathered several rocks (smashers she called them) and entered Dobson's Saloon and announced "men I have come to save you from a drunkards fate" and began smashing up the bar with her rocks. After destroying a few more bars in Wichita Kansas her husband jokingly said, why not use a hatchet for maximum damage her reply was "that is the most sensible thing you've said since we've been married", they soon divorced.

She, accompanied by several women would sing hymns and go into bars smashing them up, get arrested and have to pay fines. Carrie Nation lead a movement which eventually lead to prohibition but towards the end of that era people saw it created more problems then it solved. She was a mover, shaker and smasher and her name is joked about by several of us bartenders and patrons that enjoy well made libations. Next time you have a cocktail say here's to Carry Nation.

Cheers,

John Apodaca
john@daddyosmartnis.com
www.daddyosmartinis.com

Will the Real Mai Tai please Stand up!

The Mai Tai has a Polynesian name but was invented by Victor Bergeron (Trader Vic) in Emeryville, California in 1944.  According to documented accounts Vic was manning the bar at his restaurant (Hinky Dink's when two of his Tahitian friends asked him to make them something unusual. Vic did so and after tasting the drink they raised their glasses shouted "Mai tai Roa ae" which loosely translated, means the best damn thing we've ever drunk.

The cocktail has some complex flavors that are both sweet and sharp, I've tried the recipe and have made it for friends and they love it. Unfortunately over the years like a lot of cocktails, lazy bartenders have used shortcuts to make the drink and it has been degraded to nothing more than spiked fruit punch. If your serious about quality bartending using ingredients that were intended for this cocktail use the following recipe and let me know how it comes out.

Cheers,

John Apodaca

john@daddyosmartinis.com

Mai Tai


1 oz light Rum
1 oz dark Rum
Juice of one lime
1/2 oz orange Curacao
1 1/2 oz simple syrup
1 1/2 tsp orgeat (almond syrup)
Lime peel
Mint sprig

Place rums, curacao and syrups in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake and strain into a chilled old fashioned glass with ice and garnish with lime and mint. Serve with a straw.

Carpano Antica a wonderful sweet vermouth

There are so many cocktails and not enough good vermouths but I found one at a Bartenders Cabinet meeting last month called Carpano Antica. It's been called the king of sweet vermouth and dates back to 1786 from Turin Italy and was invented by Antonio Benedetto Carpano and is a secret family recipe.  For your information this vermouth is an aromatised wine that's flavored with a variety of botanicals that makes it very complex but gives great body when mixing it in a Manhattan, Negroni, Americano or to even drink it on it's own over ice is tasty.

You can find this at you're local liquor warehouse or look on line for it. I've used it in the cocktails I make and featured it on Martini in the morning show and you can't go wrong with it. Let me know what you think.

Cheers,

John Apodaca
john@daddyosmartinis.com

Bartending schools = bad bartenders

When I had decided to go to bartending school over two years ago, I thought I might be able to learn the secrets of good bartending, was I wrong. I was taught a lot of short cuts using things such as sweet and sour, speed guns and not even learning how to make a classic martini.

I remember the two weeks was very rushed with a brief descriptions of base spirits and was told a good bartender could crank out 10 drinks in five minutes. I also brought in orange bitters and some of my own bartending books I had collected such as the Craft of the Cocktail, Hollywood cocktails and Vintage cocktails and the teachers looked at the books and especially Regan's orange bitters and told me they had never seen them. One of the instructors even tried to convince me that classic martinis don't take orange bitters and he finally looked it up in a bartending book not from the school and told me "oh, I guess you're right" and this guy is supposed to be teaching me? I was also told that most high volume bars such as the corporate chains like Elephant bar, TGI Fridays or BJ's would hire a hot looking 20 something year old girl then a good looking guy so where does that leave a lot of the bartending students. Other options were to either work at a dive bar or a gay bar. That's why I started Daddy-O's martinis and have no regrets because I care what I create for clients and friends alike and want to use fresh fruits, herbs, top shelf spirits and proper balance and flavors rather than high fructose syrups and cheep liquor.

If all someone wants to do is pour vodka and Red bull, Jager bombs and serve cheep beer all night long,  great there's plenty of places like that to find some work . On the other hand if one cares about bartending as a craft or an art then bartending schools are not the way to go. You're best off buying some recommended books and learn from find a bartender that is creating cocktails they way they were intended to be made. I recommend looking for prohibition style bars and talking with the bartenders or there are a lot of online forums and groups you can join to learn more about classic cocktails, punches, juleps, sours, smashes and crustas. I'll list a few resources to get started but you can always ask me and find an answer for you.

Cheers,

John Apodaca
john@daddyosmartinis.com

Recommended books

Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff

Vintage Spirits and forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh AKA Dr. Cocktail

Classic Cocktails by Salvatore Calabrese

How's your Drink? by Eric Felten

Vintage Cocktails by Susan Waggoner and Robert Markel

Imbibe by David Wondrich

Online Resources

http://www.imbibemagazine.com/In-the-Magazine

http://www.critiki.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?

http://www.drinkinglounge.com/

http://www.cocktailia.com/

http://cocktaildb.com/

http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/

http://rumdood.com/

http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/

The Pendleton Cocktail

Memorial day is this Monday and if you're wondering what cocktails to serve at you're barbecue why not try  a refreshing drink called the Pendleton. It's not just a woolen jacket the Beach Boys wore on their album covers but a new, light and refreshing creation I came up with last week made in the old style as a result of a cocktail contest I was in.

It came about last Monday night at the Orange County Bartenders Cabinet meeting in Seal Beach at 320 Main where several of us bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts gather once a month to educate consumers and bartenders about using fresh ingredients and quality spirits for better tasting cocktails. There were two representatives from Infinium Spirits that were introducing some of the product line and part of the fun that night was to have a contest between the bartenders to craft his or her own specialty drink using the manufactures spirits and mixers.

Being a gin man I used the Bafferts Gin that is very tasty without a lot of flavor of the botanicals. Also since we live in the land of sunshine I decided to use fresh squeezed orange and lemon juices along with a little Cointreau and the result was eye opening. We also had to come up with a name for it so my friend Mark Barclay and I happen to be wearing Pendleton's that night and decided that's what it will be called. Sadly I didn't win the contest but you and you're guests will think it's a winner, try it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

John Apodaca
john@daddyosmartinis.com

The Pendleton Cocktail 


1 1/2 oz of Gin
1/2 oz of fresh squeezed orange Juice
1/2 oz of fresh squeezed lemon Juice
1/2 oz of Cointreau

Shake very hard and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Manhattan

The Manhattan complements the name it shares with the island. This cocktail was invented at New Yorks's Manhattan Club at the end of the nineteenth century and is a drink mad with whiskey rather than clear spirits. Two stories of it's origin are as follows:

Jenny Jerome Churchill threw a party at th club to celebrate Samuel Tilden's successful run for governor in 1874 another is that years later it was made for a Supreme Court Justice name Traux. Two problems with the stories is that Jenny was in England giving birth to her son Sir Winston Churchill and there has never been a Supreme Court Justice named Traux.

No matter which story is true, one thing is it's a tasty cocktail when using top shelf spirits such as Michters bourbon with Carpano Antica vermouth and a couple dashes of Angostura bitters and garnish with a Marasche Cherry from Italy. You can buy most of these ingredients in Hi-Times Cellar in Costa Mesa if you're in Southern CA or check on line where you purchase these.

The Manhattan


1 1/2 oz of Bourbon such as Michters or Rittenhouse Rye
3/4 oz sweet vermouth Carpano Antica

Shake ingredients very hard and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a Marasche cherry.