A Sip of History: 3 Popular Cocktails During the World War II Era, the Heyday of the Tiki Bar

The 1940s was a time when the world was at war, and people wanted their version of an escape. It makes sense that this era would involve the rise of the mixology phenomenon known as the Tiki Bar.

The contrast behind the fantastical, “exotic” haven of a bar with employees clad in grass skirts serving theatrical drinks layered with juices, rums and spices coupled with the global turmoil and the atrocities of the Holocaust is fascinating, and for the latest installment in our Sip of History Series, we are going to explore what was happening in America during the 1940s during the World War II era, and how these circumstances contributed to the rise of Tiki mixology culture.

The Bottle Raiders Sip of History Series chronicles mixology in America throughout the 20th century. In our series, we’ve covered some of the earliest cocktails like the Bijou in the 1900s. We’ve chatted about Prohibition and one of the first golden ages of mixology in the 1920s, and we’ve spent some time learning about the no-frills mixology behind some of the cocktails of the 1930s and The Great Depression.

This piece explores cocktails of the 1940s, or the World War II era.

The Rise of Fascism and an Era of American Ambivalence

Before we look to America, it’s important to understand what was happening in Germany. Adolf Hitler was elected to power in January 1933. He was a World War I veteran and a failed artist whose application was rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, according to the BBC. Hitler was a political outsider and did not come from money or privilege, yet to ascend to power with his extremist views, Hitler managed to secure funding from German oligarchs. One of the first to support Hitler’s rise to power was the media mogul Alfred Hugenberg, according to The Atlantic. One of Hugenberg’s associates warned him that upon making his pact with Hitler, he would find himself “running through the ministry gardens in [his] underwear, trying to escape arrest.”

Hugenberg liked to practice a term he coined, “Katastrophenpolitk” or “the politics of catastrophe.” The purpose was to flood the media with headlines about doom and gloom and polarize public opinion with salacious news stories that were designed to divide the country politically. Some of the stories, according to The Atlantic, were fabricated. One fabricated story shared that the government was selling off enslaved German teens to pay off its war debts. Hugenberg used this spread of misinformation to divide the public and eventually offered to give Hitler the chancellorship in exchange for a position in his cabinet. The actions of oligarchs seem to repeat themselves, and Hugenberg lowered his employee’s wages, broke up agencies, placed tariffs on agricultural goods and targeted worker’s rights. Yet, Hugenberg had a reputation for being extremely unpopular — even with the dictator himself. Eventually, Hitler did not need Hugenberg’s contacts after other oligarchs embraced him and agreed to fund his campaign.

Once he was in power, he enlisted German corporations to build the Third Reich. He enlisted brands like Mercedes-Benz to help build bulletproof cars for SS Officers and Hugo Boss designed the uniforms for the Nazi officers. The Kupferberg Holocaust Center reported that 44,000 concentration camps and ghettos were built in occupied Europe and North Africa. They were designed to target Jews, homosexuals, disabled people, social outcasts and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Approximately six million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust, and news of the atrocities had already reached the West.

Yet, according to the National World War II Museum, America was ambivalent about entering the war, driven by the country’s isolationist stance, which stemmed after World War I. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died during the First World War, and the country did not want to go through another war. Congress additionally passed Neutrality Acts, which banned America from trading with countries at war and offering funding. The American economy was also fairly stable at the time, so there was no financial incentive for it to intervene. On the opposite side of the spectrum were interventionists, who believed that American involvement was inevitable and that Hitler would stop at nothing to expand Nazi powers, which included attacking Western Europe. It turns out the interventionists were right.

‘A Day That Will Live in Infamy’: The Bombing of Pearl Harbor and Wartime in America

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Holocaust Encyclopedia reports that Pearl Harbor was the most important naval base in America, and the outlet claimed that the attack was not a success because the majority of the American fleet and aircraft carriers were deployed elsewhere. The attack lasted less than 90 minutes, and the U.S. forces at the naval base were not prepared, according to the National World War II Museum. Japanese planes destroyed and caused damage to approximately 19 American warships and 300 planes. The attack killed more than 2,400 American soldiers.

Japan explained the reasoning behind its attack was that it was in response to military and economic support from the U.S. to China. Hitler expressed his support and declared war on the United States in conjunction with the other Axis powers: Germany, Italy and Japan. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took immediate action and met with Winston Churchill during a series of wartime conferences, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. They had their differences on specific aspects of the war, such as Churchill’s desire to wait to invade France until the Nazi troops lost momentum, but these differences were eventually resolved.

A significant turning point for the Allied powers took place on June 6, 1944, or D-Day, during the invasion of Normandie, France. Still considered the largest amphibious invasion in history, the Allied powers misled the Axis powers to believe the invasion was taking place on a different date at a different location and named the phony invasion Operation Bodyguard. Though Roosevelt was uncertain about maintaining a positive relationship with the Soviet Union, the Allied powers eventually enlisted the help of Joseph Stalin during a meeting in Tehran in 1943 after Nazi forces made a push to advance into the Soviet Union, according to the U.S. Department of State. The battle of Stalingrad in 1943 marked a turning point for the war, and in February 1945, Stalin met with Winston Churchill and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Yalta Conference. Two months later, Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

According to the Center for European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the February 1945 conference called for the decentralization, demilitarization and denazification of Germany. It divided Germany, Berlin, Austria and Vienna into four occupied zones and called for the Nazis to return all their annexations to pre-war borders. The conference called for prosecution of Nazi war criminals, transforming Germany’s industrial economy to an agricultural one, redrawing Germany’s eastern borders and outlining Japan’s terms of surrender.

A Liquid Escape: Americans Turn to the Tiki Bar and Its Cultural Baggage In Hard Times

“Bali Ha’i may call you, any night, any day. In your heart, you’ll hear it call you. Come away, come away.”

The lyrics from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, “South Pacific,” perfectly capture the allure of the Tiki Bar. With an assortment of theatrical drinks layered with juices, spices and a cornucopia of rums, beachy atmospheres and tropical shirt-clad servers, the Tiki Bar was the liquid version of an escape.

It’s hardly surprising that difficult times make a population want to drink, but what is interesting is the specific draw of the Tiki Bar and interest in the “exotic” during the World War II era. The New York Times reports that the first two Tiki Bars were invented by “a few white guys” in California during the 1930s. Ernest Gantt — known as Donn Beach — opened Don the Beachcomber in 1933, and Victor Bergeron invented his own Tiki bar, Trader Vic’s.

The outlet reported that Donn hired four Filipino bartenders – who he named “the Four Boys” — who made the drinks. The outlet reports that the restaurants served Chinese food because it was just the right amount of exotic but not so distinctive it would alienate white suburban consumers. Rum was tapped as the spirit of choice in Tiki cocktails due to its affordable price, and these would be often served in collectible mugs depicting gods and goddesses belonging to cultures of the Pacific Islands.

NPR reported that Tiki Bars rose in popularity because of the United States’ interest in the South Pacific; it was considered “unknown” and “exotic,” as the soldiers went off to war and returned home.

There are a lot of aspects of the Tiki bar that are problematic from a modern lens, and it is important to understand Tiki’s baggage. With hypersexualization of the “hula girl,” coupled with drinks that are rooted in colonialism and imperialism, and throwing in the appropriation of cultures from Pacific Islands, Oceania, the Caribbean and Pasifika, it’s important to recognize aspects of Tiki are insensitive. Sipping a cocktail out of a mug designed to emulate the iconography of an ancient god can feel exploitative to some. It is especially important to take into consideration that rum, the spirit of Tiki, was so affordably priced due to a legacy of slave labor on Caribbean sugar farms.

The disturbing link between Tiki culture and white supremacy has continued throughout the 21st century, such as the Unite the Right Rally, which involved white supremacist groups carrying Tiki torches in Charlottesville while shouting antisemitic slurs in 2017.  Once more, the link reared its ugly head in 2020, when the far-right Boogaloo Boys made appearances at George Floyd protests clad in the bizarre mixture of Hawaiian shirts and tactical gear, while attempting to incite violence. This extremist group that got its start in the dark recesses of the internet would often talk about the “boogaloo,” or a new civil war. According to the Wall Street Journal, internet shorthand morphed the phrase into the “big luau,” linking this strange fashion choice to the group linked to several domestic terrorist plots.

Though Tiki has a dark and complicated history often linked with colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy, Tiki bars were and are still are about fantasy and fun. These highly theatrical first hit their stride in the 1940s but hit even more of a heyday in the 1950s and early ’60s. Though Tiki faded in the 1970s, it became popular again in the early 2000s after mixology experienced a resurgence. According to the New York Times, many believe Tiki’s return around 2008 was because people wanted a tropical escape from the Great Recession.

Whether you enjoy these drinks or not, it pays to have some understanding of the cultures that they come from and the impact of the communities around them. In 2020, Punch published a conversation with spirits professionals about the issues with Tiki, and these professionals shared their thoughts, including seasoned beverage industry professional Samuel Jimenez.

“If it is appreciation that you have for our people, our islands, for our cultures, for this aesthetic, for our words — then help us. Then care about our issues… Pay attention to our peoples, pay attention to our diaspora, pay attention to the issues that we have going on,” Jimenez said, according to Punch.

3 Popular Cocktails During the World War II Era, the Golden Age of the Tiki Bar

1. Mai Tai

(Photo: Captain Morgan/Diageo)

The Mai Tai first originated in Oakland, California, at Trader Vic’s, according to Distiller. Legend has it that a drinker tasted it and said, “Maita’i roa ae!” — Tahitian for “Out of this world!” The lore surrounding the Mai Tai says that the first rum used was Wray & Nephew 17-year, an aged rum from Jamaica that skyrocketed the rum’s popularity and drove the rum into short supply. The outlet reports that bottles of Wray & Nephew 17 have been auctioned off for $50,000 a bottle.

For our recipe, we are going to go with a much more accessible rum, Captain Morgan. The brand’s recipe calls for a mixture of Captain Morgan’s White Rum and Original Spiced Rum.

Ingredients

• 1 fluid ounce of Captain Morgan White Rum
• .5 ounces of Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum
• .5 tsp of Lime Juice
• .25 ounces of Orange Curacao
• .5 ounces of Orgeat Syrup
• Cherry for garnish

Directions

Fill a rocks glass with ice and add all the ingredients in a layered fashion. Use a cherry for garnish.

2. The Moscow Mule

The Moscow Mule originated in the 1940s in America of all places, yet there are arguments as to which coast it began in. Food & Wine reports that the feud of the cocktails origin city is between New York and Los Angeles.

“It kind of comes off as a Biggie vs. Tupac, East Coast vs. West Coast kind of thing,” CURE Bartender Gina Hooper shared with the outlet.

The New York origin story involves an L.A. beverage executive named John “Jack” Morgan, who was trying to sell ginger beer. He spent some time with the president of Hublein’s vodka division — or Smirnoff — and the group came up with a cocktail that involved the vodka, ginger beer and lime juice.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a Russian woman named Sophia Berezinski was struggling to sell the 2,000 copper mugs that she created. One day, she went into the Cock n’ Bull bar and met John Martin, the President of the former G.F. Heublein & Brother’s Distillery and Morgan — who was still trying to sling his ginger beer. The three of them put their heads together and came up with the refreshing libation.

A final origin story stems from Cock n’ Bull’s lead bartender, Wes Price, who was just trying to move a few cases of ginger beer in the bar’s basement. Regardless of which origin story is true, the cocktail first made an appearance in 1942’s edition of an Inside Hollywood gossip column. The cocktail was quite popular among celebs.

For our version, we’re going to use Smirnoff Vodka, and you can see what the critics think of it here.

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka
• 4 oz ginger beer
• 1 lime wedge
• 1 mint sprig for garnish

Recipe

Fill the copper mug with ice, then add Smirnoff Vodka. Pour ginger beer over the vodka. Squeeze lime juice. Stir to combine and garnish with lime and mint.

The Fogcutter

(Photo: Trader Vics/Instagram)

The Fog Cutter was invented at Trader Vics, and Liquor.com reports that there was a strictly enforced two-drink limit on this potent potion. In Bergeron’s 1947 Bartender’s Guide, the author wrote the following description about the cocktail:

“Fog Cutter, hell. After two of these, you won’t even see the stuff.”

A powerful combination of light rum, cognac, London Dry Gin, oloroso sherry, and citrus juices, this drink will definitely knock your socks off.

As far as our gin of choice? We recommend using Beefeater London Dry Gin, and you can check out reviews of that here. For rum, we recommend using Oxbow Small Batch White Rum, an excellent affordable option from an under-the-radar producer in Louisiana. Check out our review of the tasty rum here. For a good cognac, we recommend Courvoisier VS, a widely available and affordable expression. See how critics have reviewed it here.

As far as recipes go, we’ve chosen to use a recipe from Liquor.com, which we’ve included below.

Ingredients

• 1 oz orange juice
• 2 oz lemon juice
• .5 oz orgeat
• 1.5 oz white rum
• .5 oz london dry gin
• 1 ounce cognac
• .5 ounces oloroso sherry
• 1 mint sprig for garnish

Recipe

Add every ingredient except the sherry into a cocktail shaker full of ice; shake until fully chilled. Strain into a Collins glass with crushed ice. Float sherry and garnish with mint sprig.