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A cocktail umbrella or paper parasol is a small umbrella made from paper, paperboard, and a toothpick. They are frequently associated with tropical drinks and Tiki bars and used as a garnish decoration. They are also used in desserts or other foods and beverages.
The umbrella is fashioned out of paper, which can be patterned, with cardboard ribs. The ribs are made from cardboard in order to provide flexibility and to hinge so the umbrella can be pulled shut much like an ordinary umbrella. A small plastic retaining ring is often fashioned against the stem, a toothpick, in order to prevent the umbrella from folding up spontaneously. A sleeve of folded newspaper is located under the collar or base of the cocktail umbrella and is made out of recycled paper from either China, India or Japan. As a result, they indicate their country of origin. [1]
Most drinks with cocktail umbrellas are tropical drinks. However, they are not all tiki drinks, as some would call them. To be considered a tiki drink, the cocktail must contain rum and exotic fruit juices. [2] Following this definition, drinks such as piña coladas would be considered tiki drinks, but ones like the Hawaiian margarita would only be considered tropical. This is due to the fact that the Hawaiian margarita contains tequila instead of rum.
It is not quite certain exactly when the cocktail umbrella came into use. One possible source is Donn Beach, owner of the Hollywood, California-based restaurant and bar chain Don the Beachcomber. According to cocktail historian Dale DeGroff, Beach started the trend in 1932 after spending much of his time collecting things from the world, most notably from the South Pacific. Beach sold his merchandise, including the cocktail umbrellas, to Victor Bergeron, owner of the Emeryville, California-based bar chain Trader Vic's. According to Bergeron's son Joe, Trader Vic's used the paper parasols until their production was halted by World War II. [3]
According to Hawaiian-themed author Rick Carroll, Hawaiian bartender Harry K. Yee of the Hilton Waikiki was the first to use a paper parasol in a beverage in 1959 during the Tiki culture craze of the 1950s. [4] Yee stated that he initially would use a sugar cane stick as a garnish for his tropical cocktails, but upon seeing how guests would set the sticks in ashtrays and dirty them, switched to Vanda orchids in 1955. [5] In 1959, Yee switched to the cocktail umbrella for reasons unknown. Some speculate that it's because the bar already stocked the umbrellas as toothpicks or decoration, so they were more readily available.
Another theory exists that Beach met Yee while vacationing in Hawaii after World War II. It is there that Beach and Yee traded cocktail ideas, recipes, and somewhere along the line, cocktail umbrellas. Afterwards, both of the bartenders began to use the umbrellas in tropical drinks. [6]
Cocktail umbrellas are a Great Depression-era invention, but they did not take off in popularity until after World War II. According to an Eater article published in 2015, many people, during the difficult times faced during the Great Depression, saw the South Pacific as "a place of exotic abandon, where you didn't have to work for a living." Many poor Americans saw tiki culture as an escape from reality. [7] With the rise of the middle class after World War II came families with disposable income. That, combined with Hawaii's statehood and the rise of commercial air travel in the late 1950s, [8] led to an explosion in the popularity of tiki culture dubbed the "tiki craze". Tiki bars like Trader Vic's and Don the Beachcomber took advantage of the tiki craze, inventing slews of cocktails with a key identifying factor: a cocktail umbrella. The cocktail umbrella became synonymous with tiki cocktails, so much so that the drinks are often called "umbrella drinks". [7]
The true purpose of the cocktail umbrella is unknown. Some bartenders say that the cocktail umbrella is only decorative. [3] Other bartenders have argued that the umbrella provides shade that slows the melting of ice when the drink is served outdoors. However, the temperature outside matters more than direct sunlight when it comes to the melting of ice. The shade from the cocktail umbrella would do nothing to slow this down. [6] Another hypothesis about the cocktail umbrella's purpose is that its absence can lead to faster evaporation of alcohol due to direct sunlight when the drink is served outdoors. Chemists reject this idea and explain that the presence of a cocktail umbrella has no effect on this. [9] In the past, cocktail umbrellas have served as a gimmick to draw women into bars that were mostly frequented by men. However, this purpose has faded in current times. [10]
Currently, the cocktail umbrella has become an important part of the drinks it is found on. It has become a garnish that is essential to the identities of these drinks. [11] Cocktail garnishes started being used in the 19th century, with non-edible garnishes being introduced after prohibition. Two examples of these non-edible garnishes are cocktail umbrellas and swizzle sticks. Since their introduction, cocktail umbrellas use as a garnish has become a large part of their purpose. [12] As a garnish, they complete the drink's presentation and identify it as tropical. However, cocktail umbrellas differ from other drink garnishes. Unlike foods commonly used as garnishes, such as cherries, olives, or citrus, cocktail umbrellas do not add to the flavor of the drink and have a purely aesthetic purpose. [11]
Alternative uses for cocktail umbrellas also exist. They can be used as toothpicks and may have been used as hat decorations in the past. [3] It is also possible to use them as hair decorations and place cards to tell people where to sit at a hosted event. [13]
Drinks that commonly use a cocktail umbrella include the Blue Hawaii, Clipper-Tini, Hawaiian Margarita, Lava Lava, Lava Pi, Mac Nut Martini, Mai Tai, and Piña Colada. [14]
Though the most common use for the cocktail umbrella is as a garnish in drinks there are many other uses people have found. As a decoration piece people have used the umbrellas to make wreaths, table centerpieces, lanterns, and even hair pieces. People have also found ways to turn cocktail umbrellas into art, as is the case with Dutch trio We Make Carpets. We Make Carpets makes creative carpets out of different everyday objects. For this project, they decided to use 6,000 cocktail umbrellas in their recent creation "Umbrella Carpet 2." This unique use of cocktail umbrellas was displayed at a 2016 design exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. [15]
The cocktail umbrellas can be seen used in most cocktail lounges, bars, restaurants, and luaus. The most frequent location to spot the umbrella is restaurants and bars that maintain an "island" theme such as Hawaii.
Tiki culture is an American-originated art, music, and entertainment movement inspired by Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures. Inspired by Oceanian art, influential cultures to Tiki culture include Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean Islands, and Hawaii. The name comes from Tiki, the Māori name for the first human, often represented in the form of hei-tiki, a pendant and important taonga. The hei-tiki was often appropriated by Europeans as a commercialised good luck charm, hence the name of Tiki culture. Despite spanning over 10,000 miles and including many different unrelated cultures, religions, and languages, Tiki aesthetic is considered by some to be amalgamated into one "fantasia of trans-Pacific cultures" and "colonial nostalgia". Because of this, and the simplistic view of the Pacific taken by the aesthetic, Tiki culture has often proved controversial.
A margarita is a cocktail consisting of tequila, triple sec, and lime juice. Some margarita recipes include simple syrup as well and are often served with salt on the rim of the glass. Margaritas can be served either shaken with ice, without ice, or blended with ice. Most bars serve margaritas in a stepped-diameter variant of a cocktail glass or champagne coupe called a margarita glass. The margarita is one of the world's most popular cocktails and the most popular tequila-based cocktail.
The Zombie is a Tiki cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums. It first appeared in late 1934, invented by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant. It was popularized on the East coast soon afterwards at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Trader Vic's is a restaurant and tiki bar chain headquartered in Emeryville, California, United States. Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. founded a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants that bore his nickname, "Trader Vic". He was one of two people who claimed to have invented the Mai Tai. The other was his amicable competitor for many years, Donn Beach of the "Don the Beachcomber" restaurants.
Fassionola is a typically red-colored fruit-flavored syrup that was frequently used in tropical drinks during the 1930s but is now a relatively unusual ingredient. It also comes in green and gold varieties that are sometimes made to taste differently. It is used as a fruit punch concentrate, and some claim that a red-colored fruit syrup called fassionola was an ingredient in the original Hurricane cocktail. Although a frequent attribution, solid evidence of fassionola's use in the Hurricane from before 1956 is lacking, and it is not known what the precise ingredients were in the earliest version of fassionola.
ʻŌkolehao is a Hawaiian alcoholic spirit whose main ingredient was the root of the ti plant. 'Ōkolehao's forerunner was a fermented ti root beverage or beer. When distillation techniques were introduced by English seamen in 1790, it was distilled into a highly alcoholic spirit.
A tiki mug is a large ceramic cocktail drinking vessel that originated in tiki bars and tropical-themed restaurants. The term "tiki mug" is a blanket term for the sculptural drinkware even though they vary in size and most do not contain handles. They typically depict Polynesian, mock-Polynesian, tropical, nautical, or retro themes, and as the term is used generically do not always emulate a tiki. When used to serve drinks they are frequently garnished with fruit or decorative drink umbrellas and swizzle sticks.
A tiki bar is a themed drinking establishment that serves elaborate cocktails, especially rum-based mixed drinks such as the Mai Tai and Zombie cocktails. Tiki bars are aesthetically defined by their tiki culture décor which is based upon a romanticized conception of tropical cultures, most commonly Polynesian. Some bars also incorporate general nautical themes or retro elements from the early atomic age.
A Scorpion Bowl is a communally shared alcoholic tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl traditionally decorated with wahine or hula-girl island scenes and meant to be drunk through long straws. Bowl shapes and decorations can vary considerably. Starting off as a single-serve drink known as the Scorpion cocktail, its immense popularity as a bowl drink in tiki culture is attributed to Trader Vic.
Cocktail garnishes are decorative ornaments that add character or style to a mixed drink, most notably to cocktails.
The Blue Hawaii is a tropical cocktail made of rum, pineapple juice, Blue Curaçao, sweet and sour mix, and sometimes vodka.
Harry K. Yee was an American bartender from Honolulu, Hawaii, who was credited with having helped to spread tiki culture during the mid-twentieth century, both in Hawaii and in the continental United States. He invented the Blue Hawaii cocktail, and is attributed with being the first bartender to use paper parasols and vanda orchids in tiki drinks.
Volcano bowls are ceramic drinkware originally associated with mid-20th century American tiki bars and tropical-themed restaurants. Drinks served in volcano bowls are typically rum-based, mixed with tropical fruit juices and other liquors such as brandy, vodka, and triple sec, and garnished with fruit. The Flaming Volcano cocktail is especially associated with this drinkware.
The suffering bastard is the name for two different mixed drinks, one being more of a standard cocktail associated with World War II and the other being more of an exotic drink associated with Tiki bars. As is the case with many cocktails, there are multiple recipe variations and historical origins have been argued and changed over time. Two of the earliest recipe versions have very different ingredients. One from bartender Joe Scialom (1942) calls for brandy and gin, while another from Tiki pioneer Victor J. Bergeron primarily uses rum along with "secret ingredients" and is known for being garnished with a cucumber.
The test pilot cocktail is a vintage tiki drink invented by Donn Beach. Beach was known for changing his recipes over time, and multiple versions of the test pilot attributed to both him and others make the cocktail one of his more frequently imitated and varied tiki drinks. Test pilot recipes call for multiple rums and typically include the use of falernum syrup and lime juice. The more popular also include Pernod (pastis/absinthe) and bitters.
The cobra's fang is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of rums along with fassionola and falernum syrups, the juice of orange and limes, and a dash each of bitters and grenadine. The recipe from the book Hawai'i: Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine By Don the Beachcomber calls for it being garnished with fresh mint and a lime wheel, although a length of spiral cut lime peel made to look like a snake is used for aesthetics in some cobra named cocktails.
The Fog Cutter is a vintage tiki cocktail frequently attributed to being invented by Victor Bergeron that calls for a mixture of several liquors, the juice of lemon and oranges, orgeat syrup, and cream sherry. It is high in alcoholic content and has been called the "Long Island Iced Tea of exotic drinks." It has historically been served in special Fog Cutter ceramic mugs.
Jeff "Beachbum" Berry is an American restaurant owner, author, and historian of tiki culture, particularly the drinks associated with the tiki theme. In addition to researching and reconstructing lost recipes, he has invented and published his own cocktail recipes.
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