Post #209833 by Kono on Mon, Jan 23, 2006 5:25 PM

On 2006-01-23 14:03, pappythesailor wrote:
I was wondering about this one-- When did Don The Beachcomber claim to have invented the Zombie? Was he famous enough by 1934 to have his drink included in a mixing guide? (By the way, I like this recipe best--it just seems right)

According to Intoxica, ca 1950 Donn claimed that he invented the Zombie in 1934. "Anyone that says otherwise is a liar!!" Who is the liar he is referring to? Vic? Gavin?

The recipe from Patrick Gavin Duffy's book is nearly identical to the one on pg 89 of Grog Log, which Berry attributes to an anonymous 1934 attempt to reproduce Donn's recipe.

If Donn opened his first place in 1933/34 and Prohibition was repealed in December 1933, then yes, I too wonder how in such a short time the drink became popular and influential enough to appear in mainstream books in 1934 and 1935.

In Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits... he states that Gavin Duffy "practically radiated contempt for the drink in his books." For what it's worth.

I'd have to guess that there was a drink called "Zombie" prior to Donn's version but that he came up with his own recipe. Or perhaps he even came up with the name on his own, not realizing that a drink with the same name was already making the rounds in the bars of countries not suffering under Prohibition.

Zombie. Carribean. Rum. Juice. It's a natural.

Just for kicks I googled an online etymology dictionary:

"zombie
1871, of W. African origin (cf. Kikongo zumbi "fetish;" Kimbundu nzambi "god"), originally the name of a snake god, later with meaning "reanimated corpse" in voodoo cult. But perhaps also from Louisiana creole word meaning "phantom, ghost," from Sp. sombra "shade, ghost." Sense "slow-witted person" is recorded from 1936."

Note the "reaminated corpse" in voodoo cult bit. According to Donn legend, he invented the drink to help a hungover customer make a business meeting (Grog Log pg 5). The businessman said "I felt like the living dead - it made a zombie out of me."

From Haigh's book: "The Corpse Reviver was more a class of drink than a single recipe. It originated at the turn of the twentieth century, sometimes merely as the "reviver" or "eye opener." At the time, however titled, it's meaning was obvious: "hair of the dog" or a little more of what bit you last night.

"Corpse Revivers are largely forgotten because, for a time, fruit juiced, complex, "up" cocktails went out of style. Drinking in the morning remained off limits to most people. The "Reviver" name was bound to Prohibition, and with the temporary ascendancy of highballs in the 1940s and beyond, it simply died out with the generation that drank such drinks."

Or perhaps it lived on...as The Zombie! BWAAAHAAAHAAA!!

Oops, got carried a way there. I don't see it as such a stretch that the Zombie was a sort of evolution of the Corpse Reviver. The name alone suggests the possibility.

Well, I'm done. Where's me rum??

EDIT: Just checked IMDB.com and searched "zombie." The Bela Lugosi movie "White Zombie" was the earliest US release with the word "zombie" in the title and it was released in 1932. Just in time to capture the imaginations of a generation of mixologists and suggest a new spin on the old Corpse Reviver!

OK, maybe now I'm stretching it a bit? Done for real now.

[ Edited by: Kono 2006-01-23 17:42 ]

[ Edited by: Kono 2006-01-23 17:52 ]