When I was little my family took a vacation to Disney World. One of the memories that stands out to me the most was riding the monorail around the circle of hotels. Grand Floridian, Contemporary, and of course The Polynesian. Long before I ate my first cheeseburger in paradise I was mesmerized by the sights and sounds of vintage tropicalia. The Disney treatment gave it that cartoony tongue-in-cheek facade. I vividly recall parrots perched atop broadleaf plants in the atrium squawking and wobbling about. Even as a child I felt a connection.
Years later, when I was 13, my parents moved us to Orlando, Florida... and the rest is history. Throughout my sister and I’s formative years the family made many, many more trips around that monorail loop. A lot of times we wouldn’t even go to the parks, simply ride around and hang out or grab a bite at the resorts. I bet you can guess which hotel continually captured my awe.
I found myself working for a construction company in my 20’s, operating a concrete pump. I never minded the hard work, in fact I rather enjoyed it. Perhaps I would still be working there if it wasn’t for the hours. Bigger projects farther away, along with trying to evade the sunshine state’s scorching namesake, meant lots of drive time and very little sleep. I got to work on a lot of cool builds in a lot of cool places, though. NASA, behind the scenes at Disney, Harry Potter land at Universal, and plenty of highrises along beautiful stretches of beach, with all the sights that vantage point offers. It was like a screen saver, but I got to see it for real. One of my fondest memories of that decade long chapter in my life was when I was put on a project to redo all the concrete slabs at one of the Disney resorts. Everyday for 2 weeks I trekked my equipment out to the Polynesian and took my breaks chilling amid the immaculately groomed tropical grounds.
My love affair with the Poylnesian obviously came full circle in recent years as I sail along my journey of campy contrivances and pop-tiki. The first time I took my now wife to Disney I couldn’t wait to show her my favorite hotel, which I still have never stayed at. Just saying, if Disney wants to throw a free night to a big fan. What am I saying? It’s Disney. All the pixie dust in Neverland couldn’t make them give anything away. You know why you can’t see the pockets on Mickey’s pants? Because they’re so tight. Ahem, anyway, I digress.
Unfortunately we went a bit early and the famous Trader Sam’s Grotto was closed. So we sat at the bar upstairs taking in the tropical atmosphere as well as imbibing in some early afternoon libations. That’s when I saw it. Mind you, I was always a fan of tropical drinks, but this was early in my education of traditional tiki. I hadn’t yet dove deeply into the players and recipes. So when I saw the hurricane glasses lined up behind the bar all prepped with something sticking out of them it immediately perked my interest. Is that a signature thing here, or some Disnified take on something to be cute. No, it’s a real drink. What is that thing sticking out the top? Is that?... Wiat...Huh?... That’s actually...yeah, it’s a wooden back scratcher. In a drink.
This drink being the answer to the metaphorical question actually makes perfect sense. The question being;
When you pine for the palms,
crave a crustacean,
want for the waves,
and would love a libation, how will you scratch that Tropical Itch?
^*^
If the golden age of Tiki was a narrative we are jumping back today into the main story-arc. We’ve met both our protagonists before. On the police leaderboard of tropicalia our two suspects are pretty near the top. In the tiki mafia they are not quite Donns… but consiglieres of conch? Ok, I’ll stop. The folks we’re talking about today are Harry Yee and Joe Scialom, respectively. Hailing from the Hawaiian Village hotel on Waikiki, Harry Yee is responsible for tiki garnish as we know it. Credited as the first to use orchids and tiny umbrellas in drinks, we first met Yee as the inventor of the Blue Hawaii cocktail. (See our full episode on that in the archives.) Our second baron of bacchanal holds court behind the bar of the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, late of the Long Bar in Egypt. The man who helped win the battle of El Alamein with his hangover cure for those suffering bastards has many entries in the tomes in tiki. We’re referring obviously to Joe Scialom. Two legends, two drinks, one itch.
Let’s get into it. In 1957 Harry Yee created the Tropical Itch cocktail on Waikiki. A mix of passion fruit juice, curacao, bitters, 151 rum, dark Jamaican rum, and bourbon. Yee quickly rose to head bartender at the Hawaiian Village Hotel following his hire in 1952. He was actually mixing drinks in Hawaii before we took it ov… ahem, I mean made it a state. (Not gonna go into that, just read your history.) As the first actual Hawaiian to propagate pop tiki culture, Yee invented many drinks as well as added some tropical flare in the form of garnish. Not only was he the first one to add orchids atop a tipple, but his idea of placing paper parasols in each glass is the impetus of the term “umbrella drinks.” Yee created drinks that were simple and tropical, meant to satiate discerning tourists who wanted a local South Pacific indulgence. Aside from spitting in a Kava bowl, which didn’t really appeal to mainland vacationers, (oh, we’ll definitely cover Kava bowls some day), there really weren't true Hawaiian drinks. After all, rum was Caribbean, not Polynesian. “A Hawaiian drink to me,” Yee said, “is something they don’t get back home.” So, Harry Yee set out to make real Hawaiian drinks that embodied the flavors and soul of the islands while keeping in the modern, at the time, expectations of tiki. Who knows where an artist gets inspiration. Perhaps it came to him in a dream, or a word from a lost love. Maybe he heard the phrase “tropical itch”, referring to the need for a vacation and immediately made the connection to his craft. Or, for the man who said “I wasn’t thinking about romance, I was being practical”, he probably just grabbed the Chinese bamboo back scratcher that was laying around and threw it in a drink with rum and fruit juice and called it the tropical itch. A true pioneer, Harry Yee’s combinations of juices, rums, bourbons, and syrups hold a venerable place on the tiki totem.
Rewind. What I meant to say was, in 1957 Joe Scialom invented the Tropical Itch cocktail for the Caribe Hilton resort. Joe’s mix of light Puerto Rican rum, dark Jamaica rum, vodka, Grand Marnier, mango and lime juices with bitters has a numbing effect sure to assuage any itchiness at all. In true Joe Scialom fashion he gave the recipe out many times, but each time a different version. A curious quencher, indeed. Eventually, in true Beachbum Berry fashion, Berry discovered the recipe hidden among Scialom’s private papers. The combo of rum and tropical juices is no great innovation. And using a secondary spirit was becoming commonplace. Where the plot thickens is the fact that Joe also garnished his Tropical Itch with a wooden back scratcher. Ah, The fat is in the fire, my friends. Two legendary bartenders coming up with a drink by the same name, I can buy that. But using the same esoteric, if not mundane, household item as a garnish? Perhaps people had itchier backs in the late 50’s and there was some sort of back scratcher boom happening that I don’t know about. I’m only half joking about that. MAny times when looking back to history we have to take into consideration any parochial fads that may remain unbeknownst to us. But then, why not back scratchers in everything? Stuck into a New York strip steak or protruding from a bowl of pasta?
For the prevailing theory we once again turn to tiki historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. You see, in 1961 Conrad Hilton, owner of the Caribe Hilton where Scialom worked, purchased the Hawaiian Village Hotel where Yee worked. Berry postulates that Hilton may have been scouting properties in Hawaii circa 1957, when Yee created the drink, subsequently leaning on Scialom to create a similar libation for the Caribe. Which he did the very same year. It was common then, as is now, to borrow concepts and recipes and put one’s own twist on them. Heck, some say Trader Vic’s Mai Tai was a riff on Donn The Beachcomber’s QB Cooler. Once the hula hips were in full swing many menus offered not only the same popular standards, but similar copycats of modern staples. Such as Harry Yee’s Suffering Haole, which appears on vintage cocktail menus for the Hawaiian Village Hotel, a riff on Joe Scialom’s famous Suffering Bastard.
I’m gonna piggyback off that theory and say Harry and Joe probably knew of each other by this point and held somewhat of a mutual respect for one another. This is all conjecture, but it’s the way I like to see it. Case in point, Joe’s Tropical Itch uses a light rum/vodka combo - the basis for Harry’s famous Blue Hawaii. Whereas, Harry’s Tropical Itch incorporates a dark rum/bourbon mix, a tip of the hat to Joe’s Dying Bastard. Are these similarities a stretched coincidence? Yeah, probably. With only so many derivatives everything is similar to something in the tiki world. Professional courtesy or downright pilfery?
The chicken, the egg. Hans, Greedo. 2Pac, Biggie. The Tropical Itch. It appears we have another entry in the annals of who came first. But it wouldn’t be an episode of Pod Tiki if I didn’t take a stance. For what it’s worth, (which is not much), my money’s on Harry Yee inventing the drink. His “I don’t care how the others do it”, attitude and penchant for creative garnish seems a no brainer to me. Joe Scialom’s style of bartending was more Euro-high-brow. I feel like he would have looked at sticking a back scratcher in a drink as equivalent to selling out to pop-tiki tourist culture. But Conrad Hilton was nothing if not persistent and persuasive, especially when he’s signing the checks. Which he did for both men, eventually.
In the end we have two very tasty tiki drinks, both worthy in their own right of a place in our lexicon of libations. Our punchy pantheon. Having the same name and aesthetics, while maintaining their independence, we have no choice - Let’s make two drinks!
^*^
Another tell that these drinks were modeled after one another is their gargantuan size. Utilizing a whopping full cup of juice both concoctions come served in a large Hurricane glass. I also like to use my larger tiki mugs for this since they don’t get much use. That empty space when the mug is too big for the drink always leaves a sad, somewhat inadequate feeling. As is with a lot of tropical originals the Itch has been adapted and modernized, and by modernized I mean made simpler. That being said, some liberties like floating the dark rum - or adding lime and simple syrup to fill it out, are passable variants. But today we’re gonna cover Harry Yee’s OG recipe.
8 oz (1 cup) Passion Fruit Juice
½ oz Orange Curacao
1 ½ oz Amber 151 Rum
1 oz Dark Jamaica Rum
1 oz Bourbon
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
I tried for weeks to hunt down real 100% Passion Fruit juice. Most of the stuff you’ll find in major grocery chains is some kind of passion fruit blend. The best I found there was the Ceres. It claims to be passion fruit but in the ingredients we find it’s actually cut with pear juice. I don’t know about pear juice. Pears are like the unassuming preppy white dude at the office who you always see, but never notice. I’ve got my eye on you pears, wedged right in there between the apples and the citrus. I see you trying to creep your way into tropical juices.
Anyway, I actually found real passion fruit juice with the sacs and everything at a local Mexican market. The brand I like is De Mi Pais, but there are a few similar brands. Just make sure it’s real 100% passion fruit juice or nectar, beware the pear.
For Curacao I suggest leaving the cap on the Pierre Ferrand and using Bols or Hiram Walker. This is a boozy fruity beverage. A top shelf curacao would get lost in there. For that reason, you could even use triple sec instead. I couldn’t tell the difference. I used Bols Orange Curacao.
Amber 151. This was tough. Most high quality overproof rums are either Jamiacan or incorporate Jamaican in a blend. Awesome as those rums are, the Jamaican funk would change the profile too much. I don’t think Bacardi even makes 151 anymore. Demerara over-proofs are too dark. Finally I came across Caribaya 151 out of Barbados. Bajan rums are some of the best in the world so even for a low-to-mid-shelf 151 Caribaya holds up. I’m generally not a fan of overproof rums so I don’t have too much context for comparison but I can tell you it definitely does the job of boozing up this concoction. Any 151 amber rum would suffice, so let me know if there’s a brand out there I should try!
As for the dark jamiacan rum you guys know how I love my Myers’s for tiki drinks. And for bourbon I reached for the classic Old Forester. Four Roses also is a good option. I wouldn’t go too high or too low on bourbon here. It’s hard, and sometimes futile, using top shelf for mixing, but a bad bourbon will add an unbecoming pungiance.
Add all ingredients in a large hurricane glass, fill with crushed ice, and swizzle with a swizzle stick till glass frosts. Garnish with a mint, pineapple, orchid flower, and of course - a wooden back scratcher. Just plop that thing right in so it protrudes superfluously out of the glass. I would refrain from using the scratcher for any actual itches. That kind of tropical itch requires tropical antibiotics. Or maybe ointment, a tropical topical.
The drink should have an almost phosphorescent orange glow to it. It’s surprisingly well balanced, but also kinda wow-boozy at first. Once it settles and the ice melts just a bit Yee’s Tropical Itch mellows out to a very nice smooth, fruity, islandy relief. I actually really like this. It may become part of my regular rotation of drinks to make at home. I like that it’s not overly sweet, like a Hurricane could be. If it ever is, a small amount of lime juice fixes that. I approve.
Now let’s bounce to the other side of the New World to a different tropics and a different itch. 10 years after WW2 while the greatest generation were discovering manicured lawns and PTSD Joe Scialom was in San Juan, Puerto Rico managing the bar of the Caribe Hilton. While exotic passion fruits reigned supreme in the Pacific, mango wore the crown in the Caribbean.
Scialom’s Itch still packs an alcohol punch, though more subdued and punch-like. Here’s his recipe.
2 oz Light Puerto Rico Rum
1 oz Dark Jamaica Rum
1 oz Vodka
1 oz Grand Marnier
½ oz Lime Juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
6 oz Mango Juice (or Nectar)
For the rum I used Bacardi SIlver to stay true to the instructions, but I found Plantation 3 Star does a fabulous job working with the other flavors and rounds the drink out a bit.
Stuck with Myers’s for the dark and for vodka I always use Reyka. For those not in the know, that’s a craft vodka out of Iceland that is the only vodka I can actually tell apart from others. Grand Marnier is Grand Marnier, but you could also use the Pierre Ferand. I know, I know. That’s expensive for mixing, but in this case a true brandy based curacao actually does make a difference over a cheap triple sec. Especially with our next ingredient.
Mango juice vs mango nectar. The battle rages on. Beachbum Berry suggests “don’t use nectar, it's too sweet.” Well, I went out and purchased Best brand mango juice, and Jumex brand mango nectar. In my house we found opposite the trend to be true. Mango juice is quite overpowering with mango flavor, I mean, to the point where it kinda hides the delicate balance of a tiki drink. In that case go ahead and use the cheaper curacao. I must admit, it has a similar profile to Yee’s version, fruity and boozy, so as a riff it works perfectly. But mango is a bit of a heavier flavor and lingers on the palate more. I find using the nectar in this drink adds a bit of sweetness, yes, which is fine as there’s no added sweetener in this drink, but also tones down the viscosity of mango and lets the other flavors come out. Especially if you’re experimenting with different rums, I would go with nectar.
Definitely more Caribbean than Hawaiian this version should be a flaxen, yellowish amber. So, basically the color of mango. (Duh, great writing, Tony.) Using more ingredients and less contrasting rums gives this drink a better balance, I think.
Mix all the ingredients with a heavy cup of crushed ice and pour into a large hurricane glass. Top with more ice if needed and garnish with mint, assorted fruit and that wooden back scratcher.
Both versions are incredible and have become go-to’s in the Pod household over the last few weeks. My wife, who usually sticks with daiquiris or whatever I’m making at the time, actually requested the Scialom version. Personally, I enjoy the Harry Yee mix. Two drinks from two titans of tiki. One very good buzz. But, wait! There’s more!
In a sudden burst of creativity I thought, “what if we mash-up these two versions in one ultimate-allstar-mega-mucho mucho mas-Traveling Wilburys-esoteric exotica-Frankenstien’s monster-it’s alive-IT”S ALIVE-cocktail?”
This my friends is the Pod Itchy Pod cocktail.
1 oz Light Rum (Plantation 3 Star)
1 oz Dark Jamaica Rum (Myers’s)
1 oz Bourbon (Old Forester)
½ oz Amber 151 Rum (Caribaya 151)
½ Orange Curacao (Pierre Ferrand)
½ oz Lime Juice
3 dashes Angostura Bitters
3 oz Passion Fruit Juice (De Mi Pais)
3 oz Mango Nectar (Jumex)
Shake it all with 1 ½ cups crushed ice and dump into a large tiki mug. Top with ice if needed and garnish with mint, pineapple frond, and wooden back scratcher. Bam! There you have it, peoples. I think this is actually a fruity-boozy, yet wonderfully balanced homage to both bartenders’ creations. I find the juices work well together in the finest coming together of east coast-west coast since Afeni Shakur hugged Voletta Wallace at the VMA’s. I’m pretty proud of how good my version turned out, but it was derived from two of the masters.
I think both of these drinks would taste great as frozen boat drinks, as well. We’ll have to give that a go.
So, boozy passion, or mango intoxica? Both of which are great drag queen names, by the way. It’s not a competition. Both versions of the Tropical Itch will surely hit that spot that you just can’t reach on your own. I mean, what other drink can satiate your sobriety and your psoriasis concurrently.
Remember, folks. A Tropical Itch is not just something you pick up from a one night stand on St. Thomas. So, drink responsibly. And as always, Keepi Tiki!
Credits: Potions of the Caribbean, Beachbum Berry Remixed - Both by Jeff Berry; Moderntiki.com; Ultimatemaitai.com article on Harry Yee