In the depths of a south-eastern Australian winter, the tropics can seem a long way off. But there’s one way we can all keep the tropics in our life all year round. And that, my friends, is by putting a tiny umbrella in your drink.
I mean, why wouldn’t you? They cost almost nothing. 120 of them will set you back 10 clams. So they’re…(gets out calculator)…8.3333333333 cents each!
So where do these tiny paper parasols come from? Well, a factory in China obvs. Probably hundreds of them. But BEFORE that, where did they come from? Whose idea were they? Who made the first prototype? Well, it turns out to be quite contested space.
As Rochelle Bilow writes in Bon Appetit, there is an ongoing battle for bragging rights (and royalties maybe?) as the inventor of the tiny drink umbrella is still hot. And there are three giants of the cocktail world, and of tiki culture who lay claim to the massive legacy of the tiny umbrella.
Big world, tiny umbrella.
Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt
AKA Donn Beach. American adventurer, businessman, and World War II veteran who was the “founding father” of tiki culture. When prohibition ended in 1933 he opened a bar in Hollywood called “Don’s Beachcomber”, later to become known as Don the Beachcomber. Don’s ideas were plundered by Trader Vic and mob-tied owners of the east coast Copacabana chain throughout the 50s. As the inventor of the Tiki cocktail, Beach is responsible for drinks like the Tahitian Rum Punch and the Sumatra Kula. He invented the drinks, but did he invent the umbrella?
Donn Beach low-key rocking tiki vibes.
Victor J. Bergeron
AKA Trader Vic. Hot on the tiki heels of Beach, Vic Bergeron opened his own tiki-themed bar in Oakland in 1934. Originally named Hinky Dink’s, he later renamed it Trader Vic’s, after his own alter-ego. Trader Vic’s were early to the franchise party, opening in Hawaii in 1950 and San Francisco in 1951. There are now over 20 Trader Vic’s globally, including Riyadh, Oman and the San Jose Airport. Vic invented the Mai Tai, and is known for the ornate mugs his drinks were served in. But did those mugs always include a tiny paper parasol?
Trader Vic himself.
Harry Yee
Harry Yee (who is still with us, and about to turn 101!) was the bartender at Honolulu tourist hotspot Henry Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village Hotel for 30 years, starting in 1952. Yee is credited with inventing the Banana Daiquiri, among others, and yes, for first using paper parasols in his drinks. But where did they come from? Did Yee make them in between creating cocktails and not drinking rum? (He was a teetotaller).
Is there some way that Harry can adopt us?
So no definitive answers. Ok. Time for a tangent.
The rise of Tiki culture
Did you know the pineapple isn’t native to Hawaii? Like the tomato and the potato, the pineapple is native to South America. It was introduced into Hawaii in the 18th century. There’s evidence that pineapples were grown (in pits heated by horse manure) in England before they were grown in Hawaii.
Ditto the ukulele. Not native to Hawaii, but based on a small Portuguese guitar called the braguinha. Ukuleles weren’t manufactured in Hawaii until the 1880s, and even then they were made by Portuguese craftsmen.
Pineapple on pizza? Canadian. Invented by a Greek-Canadian South Ontario pizza proprietor named Sam Panopolous in 1962.
But all of them are consistent with ‘Tiki Culture’. Broadly related to the South Pacific cultural melting pot, Tiki pulled in carved stone heads, leis, hula girls, flamingos, and…tiny umbrellas. It began in the US in the 1930s but reached its zenith in the post-war years when Americans had money, air travel was becoming more affordable and anything Hawaiian, or Pacific in any way, was the flavour of the day.
Aloha Hawaii
By the 1960s, we had a triple-pronged Tiki trident piercing the public consciousness with Hawaiiana; Elvis, jetplanes, and surfing.
Elvis made three movies on Hawaii; Blue Hawaii, Girls! Girls! Girls! and Paradise, Hawaiian Style. He ‘surfed’. He wore leis. He strummed a ukulele. He cemented Hawaii in the public consciousness as a destination.
Then Jet planes made it possible to get there. In 1959, Pan Am started flying Boeing 707s to Honolulu. Suddenly, Hawaii wasn’t so far away, or so expensive to reach.
Which was lucky because surfing became a thing. From Gidget to Batman, surfing was everywhere in the 60s. From our tvs to our shorts. What started as a fringe teen fad like the hula hoop (also a Tiki-led fad) or rollerskates became a legitimate sport by the end of the decade.
Which is where we get today, with 8 cent umbrellas, flamingo stirrers and tiki heads on your vintage Mambo boardies. A callback to a simpler time, when the world was just beginning to open up to the middle class. The drinks got stronger, the music more exotic, and little umbrellas popped up everywhere.
We may never know which Donn, Vic or Harry invented the umbrella.
But that won’t stop us from holding our boat drink aloft and toasting whoever it was.