Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pacific Vortex: Old Royal Hawaiian hotel and more


pg 18.

Pitt hunched over the bar of the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, staring vacantly at his drink.
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, also known as the Pink Palace of the Pacific, is a hotel located at 2259 Kalākaua Avenue in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is considered one of the flagship hotels in Hawaii tourism. It opened its doors to guests on 1 February 1927 with a black tie gala attended by over 1,200 guests. The hotel quickly became an icon of Hawaii's glory days. It was the Hawaii residence or Western White House of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and boasts the bar that invented the Shirley Temple cocktail (as does Chasen's restaurant).

The Royal Hawaiian closed on 1 June 2008 for a complete renovation. The property reopened on 20 January 2009 as a member of The Luxury Collection Resort division of Starwood Hotel.

He could not remember driving through the twisted traffic flow of Nimitz Highway.
Route 92 is a major east–west highway on the island of Oahu which begins at exit 15 off Interstate H-1 in Honolulu and ends 0.6 miles (0.97 km) east of the Ala Wai Canal crossing in Waikiki. The western portion, west of Richards Street, is also known as the Nimitz Highway (named after Pacific Fleet Admiral during World War II, Chester Nimitz). And the eastern portion, east of Richards Street, is also known as the Ala Moana Boulevard.

The route was constructed in the 1940s during World War II to serve military facilities and the local airport. There were plans in the 1960s to extend the road east of the Ala Moana Shopping Center toward Interstate H-1 once again, but those plans were dropped by the late 1970s.


Vintage Aloha shirt, 1960s
Like Pitt, he was dressed casually in slacks and a flowered Aloha shirt.
The Aloha shirt commonly referred to as a Hawaiian shirt is a style of dress shirt originating in Hawaii. It is currently the premier textile export of the Hawaii manufacturing industry. The shirts are printed, mostly short-sleeved, and collared. They usually have buttons, sometimes as a complete button-down shirt, and sometimes just down to the chest (pullover). Aloha shirts usually have a left chest pocket sewn in, often with attention to ensure the printed pattern remains continuous. Aloha shirts may be worn by men or women; women's aloha shirts usually have a lower-cut, v-neck style. The lower hem is straight, as the shirts are not meant to be tucked in.

Aloha shirts exported to the mainland United States and elsewhere are called Hawaiian shirts and often brilliantly colored with floral patterns or generic Polynesian motifs and are worn as casual, informal wear.

Traditional men's aloha shirts manufactured for local Hawaiian residents are usually adorned with traditional Hawaiian quilt designs, tapa designs, and simple floral patterns in more muted colors. Contemporary aloha shirts may have prints that do not feature any traditional Hawaiian quilt or floral designs and instead may have such elements as automobiles, drinks, sports team logos, or other elements arranged in the same pattern as a traditional aloha shirt.

Aloha shirts manufactured for local wear are considered formal wear in business and government, and thus are regarded as equivalent to a shirt, coat, and tie (generally impractical in the warmer climate of Hawaii) in all but the most formal of settings.

Malahini (newcomers) and tourists (visitors) often wear designs of many bright colors while Kamaaina (or those who have been living in the islands for a long time) seem to prefer less busy patterns. These shirts often are printed on the interior, resulting in the muted color on the exterior, and are called "reverse print". For those not familiar, it may appear to be a defect in manufacturing as the shirt appears to be sewn together inside-out.

The related concept of "Aloha Attire" stems from the Aloha shirt. Semi-formal functions such as weddings, birthday parties, and dinners are often designated as "Aloha Attire", meaning that men wear Aloha shirts and women wear muumuu or other tropical prints. Because Hawaii tends to be more casual, it is rarely appropriate to attend such functions in full evening wear like on the mainland; instead, Aloha Attire is seen as the happy medium between excessive formality and casual wear. "Aloha Friday," a now-common tradition of celebrating the end of the workweek by wearing more casual attire on Fridays, initially grew out of an effort to promote aloha shirts. Although not uncommon to see professional women participating in Aloha Friday, it is more common to see men dressing this way.

Cinana swirled the ice around in his Rum Collins
The Tom Collins is a type of Collins cocktail made from gin, lemon juice, sugar and carbonated water. First memorialized in writing in 1876 by "the father of American mixology" Jerry Thomas, this "Gin and Sparkling Lemonade" drink typically is served in a Collins glass over ice.

History
In 1874, people in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere in the United States would start a conversation with "Have you seen Tom Collins?" After the listener predictably reacts by explaining that they did not know a Tom Collins, the speaker would assert that Tom Collins was talking about the listener to others and that Tom Collins was "just around the corner", "in a [local] bar," or somewhere else near. The conversation about the nonexistent Tom Collins was a proven "hoax of exposure".

In The Great Tom Collins hoax of 1874, as it became known, the speaker would encourage the listener to act foolishly by reacting to patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. In particular, the speaker desired the listener to become agitated at the idea of someone talking about them to others such that the listener would rush off to find the purportedly nearby Tom Collins.

Similar to The New York Zoo hoax of 1874, several newspapers propagated the very successful practical joke by printing stories containing false sightings of Tom Collins. The 1874 hoax quickly gained such notoriety that several 1874 music hall songs memorialized the event (copies of which now are in the U.S. Library of Congress).

The first recipe
"The father of American mixology," Jerry Thomas

The recipe for the Tom Collins first appeared in the 1876 edition of Jerry Thomas' The Bartender's Guide.

Since New York based Thomas would have known about the wide spread hoax and the contents of the 1876 published book were developed during or right after The Great Tom Collins hoax of 1874, the hoax event is the most plausible source of the name for the Tom Collins cocktail. Classified under the heading "Collins" with similarly named whisky and brandy drinks, Jerry Thomas' Tom Collins Gin instructed:

Jerry Thomas' Tom Collins Gin (1876)
(Use large bar-glass.)
Take 5 or 6 dashes of gum syrup.
Juice of a small lemon.
1 large wine-glass of gin.
2 or 3 lumps of ice;
Shake up well and strain into a large bar-glass. Fill up the glass with plain soda water and drink while it is lively

This was distinguished from the Gin Fizz cocktail in that the 3 dashes of lemon juice in the Gin Fizz was "fizzed" with carbonated water to essentially form a 'Gin and Sodawater' whereas the considerably more "juice of a small lemon" in the Tom Collins essentially formed a 'Gin and Sparkling Lemonade' when sweetened with the gum syrup.

The type of gin used by Thomas was not specified in his 1876 book, but likely was Holland gin rather than English London Dry Gin since Jerry Thomas' Gin Fizz (1862) called for Holland gin and Hollands Gin (Jenever) was imported into the United States at that time at a ratio of approximately 6 liters to every liter of English London Dry Gin

Popularity
By 1878, the Tom Collins was being served in the bar rooms of New York City and elsewhere. Identified as 'a favorite drink in demand everywhere' in the 1878 edition of The Modern Bartender's Guide by O. H. Byron, both Tom Collins gin and whiskey and Tom Collins brandy were considered fancy drinks.

In 1891, the emulsifying sweetener, gum syrup, was replaced in the recipe by sugar and the use of Old Tom gin, a lightly sweetened Gin popular in 18th-century England. In the 1891 book, The Flowing Bowl: When and what to Drink, author William Schmidt listed the Tom Collins as including:

Tom Collins Gin (1891)
The juice of half a lemon in a large glass,
a bar-spoonful of sugar,
a drink of Tom gin; mix this well;
2 lumps of ice,
a bottle of plain soda.
Mix well and serve.

One turn of the century recipe subsequently replaced the lemon juice with lime juice.

Other "Collins" Drinks
There are several other cocktails made in the same fashion and with the same ingredients as the Tom Collins, with the exception of the base liquor (gin in a Tom Collins).

* Brandy Collins — with brandy (cognac, armagnac or similar)
* Juan or José Collins - with tequila
* Jack Collins — with applejack
* Jake Collins — with gin and 2oz pineapple juice, topped up with soda water and a cherry.
* John Collins — with bourbon or rye whisky
* Michael Collins — with Irish whiskey, named for the Irish leader Michael Collins
* Ron Collins — with rum (popular with tourists in Cuba), based on the Spanish word ron for "rum"
* Sandy Collins or Jock Collins — with Scotch whisky
* Vodka Collins or Comrade Collins — with vodka
* Phil Collins — with 7-Up or Sprite.
* Jallu Collins - with Jaloviina. Enjoyed among mainly Finnishmen.
* Grand Orange Collins - with Grand Marnier, orange juice, lemon juice, Simple Syrup and club soda
* Russell Collins - with Jägermeister
* Sherron Collins - with large splash Orange Juice
* Harry Collins - with Whisky, ginger beer and lime juice instead of lemon.

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