War! What Is It Good For?

Since February, Chef George Krause of Doe’s Eat Place in Baton Rouge (3723 Government Street) has been leading patrons and barflies through the history of cocktails, offering menu pairings and off-the-cuff lectures that bridge the gap between the eighteenth century punches and the molecular mixology of today. 

As America entered the 1940s, it had been almost a decade since Prohibition was unceremoniously and soberly kicked to the curb. But the times (and ingredients) were still a-changin’.

“Obviously, the big thing that happened this period was World War II,” said Krause. The war rippled not just across battlefronts and households, Krause explained, but through the cozy comfort of America’s bars too. With many of the country’s distilleries converted for military production, home-grown bourbon grew scarce—which left an opening for the exotic.

“The war brought soldiers to random islands,” said Krause, “and they’d bring home that tropical fruit.” 

With the abundance of these island imports, the drinks grew sweeter. They grew fruitier. And, boy, did they sneak up on you.

Look no further than the Hurricane. New Orleans bar owner Pat O’Brien is credited with crafting the Hurricane, but he was cribbing from an already-popular formula: “Fruit juice, booze, citrus, and sugar,” said Krause. “You’d mix it all up, and people would drink it at hurricane parties.” 

But O’Brien’s signature cocktail was borne out of a particular dilemma. “Distributors required you to get three bottles of rum for every bottle of whiskey you ordered,” said Krause. So the intrepid bartender used his surplus of rum in a way that many a college party has echoed in the ensuing decades: pouring it willy-nilly into a vat of punch. 

Krause detailed O’Brien’s process: “He mixes it into a pot, adds passion fruit juice, sugar, lemon juice, and grenadine and calls it a day.”

Other beachy cocktails were the Mai Tai and the Piña Colada. “It was the tiki era,” said Krause. A mania for Polynesian culture swept American restaurants and watering holes in the forties and fifties, exacerbated by the soldiers who had actually stepped foot in Hawaii and later shared their stories with the mainland.

Vodka experienced a surge in popularity during these decades too; without its own strong flavor, it slipped easily into the sugary cocktails and punches. “Everyone wanted to use vodka,” said Krause. Even its Soviet origins didn’t cause too much anxiety. “Most of the vodka manufacturers were moving their factories out of Russia to places where their product wouldn’t be seized by the state.”

In the Middle East, an unorthodox strategy led to the screwdriver—or rather, American oil men unsatisfied with Saudi Arabia’s alcohol-free culture would sneak vodka into their morning orange juice while traveling in the region. Cheers!

And though today the margarita accounts for one out of every four drinks ordered in a U.S. bar, during this time it was still a fledging drink, seeping across the border.

According to Krause, the origins of the drink’s name are still murky, “but I’m of the Daisy camp.”

The Daisy is an old brandy-based cocktail that shares much of its DNA with the Sidecar: lemon juice, simple syrup, Cointreau, and brandy. “Margarita is Spanish for ‘Daisy,’” explained Krause. “And if you substitute lemon juice for lime juice…in my head, there’s someone along the border who ordered that one time. They didn’t have the ingredients so they mixed in what they had and called it the ‘Mexican Daisy’—hence, ‘The Margarita.’”

Whether you get a Margarita, a hurricane, or the boldly feminine Pink Lady, all is bright, sweet, and cordial behind the bar at Doe’s Eat Place this month—at least where the drinks are concerned!