Tony Deyal
MY DAUGHTER Jasmine is nine and has developed into a reader of almost everything in sight, including restaurant menus. My eight-year-old son, Zubin, is less selective, generally settling for the ubiquitous rice, beans and chicken that makes the term 'Belizean cuisine' an oxymoron. It is indeed the staple diet since the gas and spices make you feel like your intestines have been constricted by sharp metallic pins.
We went into a small hotel with an even smaller restaurant which seems to double as a bar for the non-discriminating. Maybe the food tastes better after the happy hour. The one-page menu, covered in plastic wrap, had all the food choices on one side, generally variations for gas guzzlers with tortillas, tacos and burritos, and all the drinks on the other. Suddenly I spotted among the 'Belizean sunrise' and other tropical twists on the cocktail theme, a 'panty ripper'.
Knowing that the question would come as inevitable as birth, death and taxes, and without a word of explanation to my wife, I snatched the menus away and said that I would order. I knew that asked to explain what a 'panty ripper' was, I would be thong-tied and my answer would be brief. In thinking about it, I would probably say that it was a misprint, really an unfortunate typographical error, and they really meant 'party ripper'. You get so drunk on it that you 'mash up' or 'rip up' the party the way a certain Mr. Bissessar behaved in the Trinidad calypso.
BETSY'S BRACERS
The fact is that in many things, including my advancing age, I am very old-fashioned (which is also the name of a cocktail) and I still confuse the drink 'margarita' with the island. Growing up, we drank our rum straight or neat, with water sometimes after or added, and the sissies drank it with soda, coke or seven-up. We made jokes about 'on the rocks' being uncomfortable and 'bottoms up' being a homosexual expression. We were taught never to mix our drinks and even a combination of beer and rum was considered potent, especially if it was overproof or 'puncheon' rum. Then it was 'iron and steel'.
It was as a student in Canada that I discovered 'cocktails'. There are different stories about how the cocktail got its name. One version is that a lady named Betsy was the barmaid in a New York tavern during the Revolutionary War. She had invented the concoction called 'Betsy's Bracers'. Some Americans and their French allies were having a wild time celebrating a foray by the Americans that had yielded some male pheasants owned by the British. While drinking, they toasted Betsy's drink, "Here's to the divine liquor which is as delicious to the palate, as the cock's tails are beautiful to the eye." To which a French officer replied, "Vive le cocktail!"
Another source suggests that a New York publican had a daughter, Peggy, who mixed a powerful concoction. She was in love with a sailor. Upon his return with a champion fighting cock named Lightning, the sailor was allowed to marry Peggy. On their honeymoon bed, Lightning crowed, and shook loose a tail feather, which Peggy put in her husband's drink saying, "Lightning names this drink! Drink this cocktail, sir, to your success with my father, and as a pledge to our future happiness!"
Hopefully, Lightning struck more than once in the same place, and in other places too which claim to have invented the cocktail including Britain with 'cock's ale,' (served at cockfights), Mexico and 'coctel' (named after a beautiful serving wench) and New Orleans where a Bitters maker served his recipe in a coquetier (French for eggcup). Whether truth or lie-bation, regardless of its origin, the 'cocktail' moved from fad to fashion and finally became fully entrenched in both language and custom.
COCKTAIL NAMES
In the ensuing years, many were named after people. The Brandy Alexander was named after the Greek emperor who wept for more worlds to conquer, a similar fate experienced by those who have used his weapon not wisely, but too well. The Bloody Mary took its name from the Catholic Queen of England, Mary, whose religious fanaticism sent many people to their deaths. The Gibson got its name when artist Charles Dana Gibson, faced with a shortage of olives, used pearl onions in his martinis. The Gimlet came into existence when Sir T.O. Gimlette, a British navy surgeon, created a 'healthy' cocktail that combated scurvy and cabin fever simultaneously by mixing gin with lime juice. Then there is the Harvey Wallbanger named after California surfer, Tom Harvey, who loved the 'Italian screwdriver' (a mixture of vodka, orange juice and Galliano). After the ups and downs on the waves, Harvey would rush to his favourite bar, overindulge and walk straight into the wall when he tried to go home.
Unfortunately, those names are now history. When I first heard the term 'virgin' applied to a Bloody Mary or piña colada, I thought it was daring. Now, looking through a list of cocktails, most of the names have gone from exotic to obscene and almost always X-rated. 'Panty ripper' is tame by comparison. There are all kinds of 'orgasms', many different types, locations, positions, partners and orifices of and for sex - just one damp thing after another actually. Names like 'dry hump' (nothing to do with a camel) and 'no knickers' are tame examples. 'Silk panties', 'naked navel', 'legspreader', 'backseat boogie' come together in an alcoholic haze.
It is wishful thinking that I can protect Jasmine or Zubin without locking them up in the house for their entire lives. It is a pity that we live in a time when 'sex on the beach' or any kind of orgasm is a drink and not an experience to be savoured and saved for days like now when the present and future cause you to take refuge in the past, dreaming of brown cows and grasshoppers.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that if he had his way he would give whoever devised some of those names a good punch or hire a shooter.
