Post #5937 by chefgrey2 on Wed, Aug 14, 2002 8:34 PM

Yep, I've seen the Whaler's site before...no help...Okolehao is indeed made from the sacred Ti plant...and used to be all over the Hawaiian Islands...when I lived there I would find it sold in out of the way "general stores"...A lot of the old men would sit around drinking Oke & Coke and eating boiled peanuts, especially before a chicken fight or a "Portagee crap game" .......It gets its name from back in the day when whaling vessels would bring their big iron pots on shore to make alcohol for the trip back to New England, or whereever...usually a ship had two big iron pots, and when they brought them on shore and sat them side by side they looked like the butt of a big ol' Auntie...so they called any liquor made this way Okolehao, okole meaning butt, and hao meaning iron...the Hawaiians didn't have sugarcane at the time, so they used Ti leaves....As far as I know you can only bring bottles back with you from Hawaii, but I heard that it should be able to be procured here and there occasionally back here in the mainland...no tiki bar should be without it!