I was standing on Cocoa Beach looking out towards the vast expanse of sea. The beach there is flat and wide. Spanning the view it was easy to imagine in relative space the pier just out of view to the north and the long brown-gray sand stretching all the way to Melbourne to the south. Then, further still to South Beach and the Everglades all the way across the 7-mile bridge that mirrors Flagler’s railroad to the southernmost tip in Cayo Hueso, otherwise known as Key West. What wasn’t so easy to imagine was what was ahead of my shortsighted visage. Out past the breakers, out past where the cruise ships departing from Cape Canaveral looked like bath toys on the horizon.
Southwest you’d hit the Bahamas and eventually Cuba. But, directly ahead, if the winds blew you off course you might wind up in Bermuda, otherwise, it’s nothing but open ocean till Africa where you’d make landfall in the Western Sahara or Morocco. That moment was over a decade ago when I began traversing the tropics attempting to follow in the well worn paths of the poets, pirates, and problems on which I based my foundation, and hoped to reconnect with my Floridian upbringing along the way. It was a time of reflection and growth. A personal renaissance I’ve spoken of many times.
Whenever I’m on a beach I try to do the same thing and figure out my place in the world. But, despite the tide slowly sinking me into the sand, my feet are on solid ground. Imagine you're on top of a building in New York City. A rooftop bar or whatever. The view is still breathtaking, enrapturing, but, if you have an aversion to heights like I do, a bit scary. You can see for miles a perspective just a few centuries ago reserved for the birds and the gods. The air is still and quiet like a forest under a blanket of snow or the atmosphere in the eye of a hurricane.
Think of how the Earth looks as you ascend away from it on a plane. The higher you go, the farther away from everything you know down there you get the more disconnected it feels. As if now you’re in a separate place. A place where things down there don’t matter. Cut off, helpless, free. Now imagine you break from the shackles of gravity and make it all the way into space.
At the time of my writing this there remain two American astronauts who have been marooned on the space station for a full year. Now imagine the smell of two humans who haven’t bathed in a year. Ok, stop imagining that. It’s gross. But, seriously. If staring out from a beach, atop a building, or from a plane makes you feel small and alone, imagine the view of space. Not our little blue rock, but the other way. Staring out into forever. Trying to put yourself in perspective of the universe. Where you are in relation to eternity. Staring into forever and being out there in it. A part of everything and nothing.
I suppose we do a version of that everytime we look to the night sky. The most amazing star gazing I ever experienced was in Hawaii, never before had I seen color in the sky and more stars than space between it seemed. Yet, just this past New Year’s Eve I was standing outside in Florida staring at the Pleiades through the plume of a Queen Palm tree in my parents backyard enraptured by the thought of a sailor navigating by those same stars centuries ago, but not that relatively far from where I was standing. Regardless of religion, or science, which I believe are one in the same, our place in space-time is a miracle. And even when we think we can explain a miracle that doesn’t make it any less miraculous.
There are millions and billions of stars out there, all being circled by planets that could be just like our little blue dot. But in our tiny “solar system”, if you will, there is but one planet that exemplifies space and technology and the future of mankind in a single image. The Jetsons’s, EPCOT Center, science books, and postmodern artwork of the mid-twentieth century, they all share a common iconography. Whenever a branding wants to show that they’re in space or the future there’s one planet that’s used, and it’s not ours. It is the rings of fortune. The largeness of intrigue. The very idea of spectacular space. It is the name of this episode’s drink, the Saturn.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tony and this is Pod Tiki.
Again we walk in the shadows of giants. If not for famed cocktail author, David Wondrich, Tiki historian, Jeff Berry, and legendary Tiki bartender Bob Esmino, we would know nothing about the Saturn or its inventor, the great Popo Galsini.
Despite having a name like a Sicilian mobster Popo Galsini is actually a Filipino bartender from the early 20th century. Popo’s story is extensive and I can’t believe I never ran across him before because, as you’ll see, he shares Venn diagram space with so many of the people and places we’ve covered hitherto. The preeminent work on Popo Galsini was written by David Wondrich, whom I not only admire as a cocktailian, but also as a writer. Not to mention when I reached out with a question while reading his book, Imbibe!, he responded, which feeds my ego so, of course I like him. Wondrich’s work is so in depth that I believe the best way to tackle this is a good old fashioned timeline. So, grab your space suit and strap in. We’re blasting off!
Before we leave terra firma, we start in the mountain province of Pangasinan where José Valencia Galsim was born in either 1900 or 1904. If we haven’t discussed it before a lot of Filipinos have Spanish sounding names because when Spain colonized the region a decree was put in place that forced Filipino nationals to adopt Spanish surnames along with religious beliefs and all the trappings that come along with having the privilege of being ruled by the glory of the Empire.
In 1928 José Galsim arrived in San Francisco via a Japanese liner called ShinyōMaru. It would seem he took up bartending there though he doesn’t surface in documentation again till 1930 in Brooklyn where 28 year old José married 18 year old Lena DeCicco. By January 1939 our now going by Joe Galsim resurfaced around Los Angeles married to a new woman, Ms. Violet Jane Stone, 20 years old. By may of the same year he’s documented once again as marrying Helen Bray listed as 18 years old though she was only 17. It appears he was able to marry twice in five months because he changed his name from Galsim to Galsini. Thus is born, Joe Galsini. The Filipino philanderer with the Italian mobster name.
Galsini had been honing his chops behind the bar this whole time but it was in 1941 we find him working at the Tropics on the corner of Sunset and Vine. The Tropics was one of those Don The Beachcomber copycats and it’s where Galsini encountered the “tropical” drink. By 1948 he is at the Palm Springs Tennis Club and had apparently made a name for himself amid the bartending scene as evidenced by the fact that he somehow acquired the sobriquet of “Popo”. There are some apocryphal theories floating about the interwebs regarding the origin of that nickname, but they all fall short of corroboration. If the likes of David Wondrich and Jeff Berry can’t un-earth the secret I feel certain in saying no one can. He’s listed as the head bartender at Palm Springs Tennis Club but his real break came a year later in 1949.
That year the United Kingdom Bartender’s Guild set up a branch in southern California. Among the first 40 members was one J. Popo Galsini. An honor he shared with another of our Tiki totem of fame alums, Mr. Bob Esmino, who we’ve discussed a few times and from who Jeff Berry has deciphered many a recipe. Now, the Guild would hold these bartending competitions and in one in particular Popo finished 3rd and won a $50 dinner at Kelbo’s Hawaiian Barbeque. We’ve mentioned Kelbo’s before because as well as BBQ they specialized in tropical drinks. Thing is, at this point Popo was actually working at Kelbo’s. Some prize. A few years later Thomas Stenger won a gift certificate of $1,000 to the Ambassador Hotel … where he worked. If you’re seeing a pattern here you’re not the only one. Decades later a Guild member would confide in Jeff Berry that the fix was in on these contests. If you need more proof, when Popo won, he was the Guild’s secretary.
However, that doesn’t diminish Popo’s reputation as even Bob Esmino said that he looked up to Popo during those times. These contests gave us many Popo drinks that went on to become classics such as the Blue Gardenia, Queen’s Choice, and the Saturn.
Circa 1959 in our timeline now, Popo earns himself a little Donn Beach cred by taking a job at the New Orleans themed La Cuisine in Orange County. The now 30 year bartending veteran must have missed the tropical vibe, or perhaps there weren’t enough barely legal girls for him to marry, because in 1960 he left La Cuisine and made for Long Beach where he took up the stick at Hukilau Polynesian Lounge. 1964 found him at the Palms in Anaheim then Huntington Beach at the Kona Kai by 1966. Suffice to say he made the rounds. This wasn’t uncommon for Tiki bartenders in those days. The reason Tiki proliferated the way it did was due to Don The Beachcomber bartenders being poached by the likes of Trader Vic, Steve Crane, and the many other capitalizing scoundrels of the time.
It was there and then at the Kona Kai in 1966 that Popo entered another contest with a drink called X-15. X-15 was named after the rocket powered space plane manufactured by North American Aviation. To this point Popo was regularly finishing in the money at all these tournaments but rarely took first. This drink, though? He had a feeling it was a winner. His best yet. Unfortunately, just before he was set to enter the drink in 1967 the Apollo 1 capsule, powered by an X-15, exploded killing the three astronauts aboard. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives and Popo saw fit not to name his entry after the aircraft that killed them. Not to gloss by such a national tragedy, but for our purposes, Popo decided to rename his drink after the rocket booster that would eventually succeed in lifting Apollo into space. He called it Saturn.
Popo was 67 years old when he won first place at the annual Guild competition with the Saturn. No word on how old his wife was at the time.
After this monumental victory Popo naturally bounced around to a few more bars, which included stepping away from tropicals for a spell in fine dining at Orange County’s Ambrosia, before settling at a place called the Saloon. In Laguna Beach no one fancied the craftsmanship of Popo’s day. Furthermore it was 1980 and the art of cocktailing in general had given way to Appletini Sex on the Beach sweet & sour kooladas. The Saloon was a small neighborhood place with 3 tables and no barstools where I’m willing to stake my tenuous reputation once again that most patrons neglected to realize or care much, for that matter, they were sucking down drinks mixed by a legend.
Popo turned 81 years old in 1981 and celebrated at the Saloon with a happy crowd of regulars that loved him. From all accounts he never felt less than for working there, but rather that he’d done his duty, served the genre with all his heart, became a legend, and was content being surrounded by faithful patrons who enjoyed him even if they couldn’t appreciate all he’d done. It’s recounted in David Wondrich’s wonderful article that at his birthday celebration young female regulars wore tight fitting football jerseys printed with “POPO 1981”. One such lady interviewed at the time is quoted, “He’s always so sweet to me, even when he knows I’ve had too much.” I’m sure he was, darling.
In 1982 José Valencia “Popo” Galsini wrapped his car around a tree and died instantly. Save a few customers at the Saloon this master of his craft absconded into obscurity for over a decade and so did his coup de gras cocktail, the Saturn.
Then, sometime in the mid-1990’s Tiki historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry comes across a glass in a thrift store commemorating the IBA finals in Mallorca, Spain with a recipe printed on the side to a drink he’d never heard of by a bartender with a funny name - J. Popo Galsini.
The glass only listed the ingredients, not how to prepare the drink. But, when Jeff brought it up to Bob Esmino Bob not only remembered the drink, he remembered how to make it. Berry included the Saturn in his book Remixed and it’s since gone on to have a second life in becoming a classic vintage Tiki drink. In the words of Clark Griswold, Hallelujah, holy shit!
I don’t know about you guys, but after all that I’m ready to make this damn drink!
The ingredient list is super simple. Fresh lemon juice. Falernum, which we’ve discussed in detail, is a Barbados liqueur with Caribbean spices added. Orgeat, the French almond syrup used in Mai Tais. If I’m making Mai Tais my favorite orgeat is Lattitude 29 when it’s in stock. Otherwise, BG Reynold’s makes my next favorite. However, if you have some cheap stuff laying around that you don’t like using for Mai Tais, where the orgeat is an integral ingredient, this is the time to use it. When mixing with heavier ingredients that present overbearing flavors the orgeat is not so present so I find it OK to use “over-the-counter” brands. I do the same with another of my favorite's, the Royal Hawaiian, when I don’t want to use up the good orgeat. Then we’ll need passionfruit syrup. BG Reynold’s and Liber & Co. both make good versions but I make my own. Buy some frozen passionfruit and let it thaw to a liquid. Then mix your desired amount with equal parts simple syrup and there you go.
Lastly, Gin. Yes, this is one of those anomalous gin based Tiki drinks. Let’s take a moment to look at gin in Tiki. There’s a great article by Emma Janzen on imbibe.com wherein Jeff Berry is interviewed on the topic, I urge you to read that, but the gist of it is intuitive. People loved gin. So much so that in England it was an epidemic causing Parliament to actually take action because people were day drinking so much that nothing in London was getting done. People got so drunk it affected the economy. A mildly tempered love for gin carried over the United States. That is until our old enemy Prohibition.
As gin, brandy, and wine from Europe became scarce people turned to what they could find. The true American Spirit, rum. However, rum was still considered the pauper’s drink at the time. So, when Prohibition ended, drinkers returned to their preferred boozing.
Rum had one virtue its European counterparts did not. It was cheap. So cheap that, let’s say if someone knew a lot about it and wanted to experiment with mixing different rums together and adding fresh juice and tropical spices, well, that was totally feasible. Problem was, it took awhile for rum to shake its lower class reputation. In order to get butts in barstools Donn Beach and Trader Vic had to offer some drinks with spirits patrons recognized. Combine that with the fact that Joe Scialom was already pairing gin with tropical flavors like lime and ginger in his Suffering Bastard all the way over in Egypt. I’m not sure how much history played a part in the entrepreneur’s thought process but, if we consider how Dutch colonizers brought genever to the Caribbean one could argue that gin has always been part of the tropical cocktail.
In any case, but particularly the one we’re discussing, I am using Beefeater for this recipe. Whenever it’s not specified I use London Dry gin as it was the most popular by this point in history. Beefeater is the gin I use for mixing with heavier flavors. The botanicals cut through and blend seamlessly with lemon and Falernum. Even the smell of gin is bright, warm, and floral. Personally, it seems more redolent of the tropics than cold gray Victorian England. Perhaps that’s why they like it so much. Escapism is what we deal in, after all.
I give you the Saturn:
1 ½ oz Gin
½ oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Passion Fruit Syrup
¼ oz Falernum
¼ oz Orgeat
1 cup Crushed Ice
Blend everything on high for at least 20 seconds. You really want to get a good frappe to it. Open pour into a footed Pilsner or Collins glass and garnish with a thin portion of lemon peel wrapped around a cherry to look like the rings of Saturn.
Wow! This is the first tiki drink in a while that truly tastes different than any other thing on the menu. Gin and lemon keep it light and airy but there’s a distinct nuttiness. It juxtaposes drolly with botanical notes while warm Caribbean spice adds body and a smooth texture along with the frapped ice. There’s a little passion fruit bite in there if I look for it but mostly all these flavors are perfectly balanced into a creamy nutty flowery fruitish blend. It triggers banana vibes, like it’s hitting the same receptors on the palate. It’s hard to describe how there’s a rich nutty cream on top while a sharp fruity botanical sits underneath. They’re actually happening at the same time but my synesthesia puts them vertical for some reason.
Conflicting sensations of flavor, texture, and temperature surely make this drink feel like it’s from a far away planet idolized in the iconography of cold war space race propaganda. It tastes like Mary Tyler Moore-psychedelic guitar riff-Nixon drinking navy grogs at trader Vic’s-Darth Vader-go-go boot-Marvin the martian-blast off0-Tiki madness.
The simplicity, affordability, and resulting flavor of the Saturn make it a perfect Tiki drink. Nothing is there that doesn’t need to be there.
Of course, I had to try some of the other suggested ways of preparing a Saturn. Martin Cate in his Tiki tome, Smuggler’s Cove, suggests serving it as a straight up cocktail. That is, strained into a coupe. It’s notably more syrupy and passion fruit forward this way. It loses the nuance and balance and is quite sweet. But, that makes sense because Martin Cate tends to mix all his recipes very sweet. Probably flash blending then straining might fix the issues but, in my humble opinion this is simply not the best version of this drink.
Flash blending and open pouring into a glass doesn’t blend the drink but leaves some crushed ice floating on top. This makes it much easier to drink through a straw but it’s missing the smooth texture nuance. Therefore I contend the fully blended version is the best.
Knowing what we know about the telephone game of “official” recipes versus how a bartender actually makes the drink, the recipe printed on the side of a glass being the correct one seems dubious at best. I stake my reputation on the validity of Jeff Berry, which may actually hurt Jeff as, much like thrift store glassware, my reputation isn’t spotless. However, I was incredulous at first that a collectible would be accurate. But any doubt was alleviated when Bob Esmino corroborated the recipe. Makes me wonder how many other vintage cocktails have been, or will be, lost to time simply because no one has asked the right person if they remember how to make them.
How insignificant is that cocktail, then? The sensation every time a patron walked into their favorite establishment, among friends that made it a second home, and ordered that drink. All the conversations had that got so deep or exciting that the drink seems to disappear before you know it. The bartenders that have mixed so many by now that they can hold a conversation about politics and flirt with a waitress while stirring a drink in one hand and pouring one with the other not caring whether or not that recipe will live on or fade into so many distant recollections.
And how different are we from those drinks after we’re gone? Remembered fondly, perhaps, by those close to us. Perhaps, one more generation. Then all the powerful moments that made us who we were. The shared emotions. The silent gestures and screaming passions. The interactions with each other that mean more than any bargain writer tapping away at a small writing desk his wife bought him for Christmas years ago when they first began their journey together in a small bungalow apartment in Nashville when things were raw but sweet and scary and unknown, could ever properly describe.
Maybe that’s the point. If time is not linear but flowing in all directions then maybe the idea is to experience the explosion of life in this fleeting ephemeral moment we’re given before returning to space dust and falling back into the rhythm of infinity. Maybe even circling in the rings of Saturn.
Keepi Tiki!
Sources: DailyBeast.com article Finding Popo: The Search for a Lost Tiki Master Bartender by David Wondrich, Beachbum Berry Remixed by Jeff Berry, imbibe.com How Gin Made Its Way Into Tiki by Emma Janzen, liquor.com, Smuggler’s Cove by Martin Cate.
