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Tiki Central / Locating Tiki / Trader Vic's, Honolulu, HI, (restaurant)

Post #545022 by Phillip Roberts on Wed, Jul 28, 2010 1:18 PM

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On 2010-07-26 20:11, bigbrotiki wrote:
Posted and scanned, there it is! Doesn't mean it's true though :)

What was that lyric from Joe Jackson's song "Sunday Papers?" "They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true!" :) The second article (dated June 26, 1956) by Coby Black seems to be quoting Vic.

"Before then, the only topical drink you could buy was a Planters Punch" CONTINUED the man who..."

So if Vic told her that, he must be attributed to the information in the paragraph above it.

"I could be a liar and say I started the Polynesian trend in dining, but I won't. Don the Beachcomber was really the father of it all, and Hawaii owes him a vote of thanks for encouraging Polynesian atmosphere." Vic IS being honest here, so why would he not be honest before this point in the article?

Let's see what Trader Vic had to say in his 1970 press kit, which was published in conjunction with his court case about his invention of the Mai Tai:

I tend to trust newspapers more than I do press kits. Journalists seem more reliable (even then) than press kit writers. Press kits by nature are designed to get out YOUR side.

The fact that Vic has a witness to his 1944 account is good in court case, and it does make compelling evidence.

Since Vic had a falling out with the Honolulu Trader Vic's owners, I bet they just loved to "aggravate his ulcer" with all sorts of little stories like the one above. I personally like to trust the handwritten signatures in my possession. Vic might have been an insufferable bastard at times, but no one would call him a lying bastard.

Nor am I calling him (or anyone) a "lying bastard." I simply must agree to disagree in this case and keep an open mind.

It does not seem that the second article was influenced by the Honolulu Trader Vic's (Spence and Cliff Weaver in 1970) owners to "aggravate his ulcer." It's quite possible that the 1940 story is true. It's just as possible that it's not and Vic said it because he knew he was doing an interview with a journalist from Honolulu. Faulty memory 30 years later as opposed to 16 years later? Reliable witness in 1944 is a better story that will stand up in court in 1970?