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Tiki Talk with Ben Willis: The Suffering Bastard · Mega Rock On Demand

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday afternoon, and it's time we light the torches for Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Willis with you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not at all uncommon, especially in the Tiki Cocktail Pantheon, for over the years one name of a drink to refer to multiple, myriad different variations, and in some cases completely different recipes for the same named drink.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Most famously the zombie, which the original recipe by Don Beach was kept absolutely a secret for many decades, in fact.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you wanted to imitate a zombie, you had to guess, and that's essentially what everyone else did when they put a zombie on their menu that they weren't Don Beach and they weren't a Don the Beach comer.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were just taking a stab in the dark in some cases and getting completely wrong, quite frankly.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But one of those situations where you have two different cocktails with the exact same name that have nothing to do with each other and yet somehow have a connection.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the suffering bastard.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now I hear you say, oh, what are you saying?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is a venerable cocktail that goes all the way back to the heart of World War II.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the original version was made by bartender Joe Shalom, who was working at Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget, there was the African campaign in World War II.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of stuff going on there as well.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Shalom was working the bar at the hotel and was trying to concoct a hangover cure for Allied troops.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: According to the story, came up with his concoction, The Suffering Bastard, as a hair of the dog, so to speak.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this became so popular among the Allied servicemen and servicewomen there in Cairo and around the area that when the war ended, they took the concept of the suffering bastard with them, and it became popular stateside as well over the next several decades.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, fast forward to the 1950s and 60s and the advent of tiki bars, and they're looking for exotic drinks to put on their menu.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what a name to have on your menu, the suffering bastard! And it even has a legitimately exotic origin in Cairo, Egypt, of all places.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they started adding it to their menus.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But trader Vic Bergeron, Victor Bergeron, not to be outdone, in 1968, said, you know what?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna make up a whole new drink because I know best and I know better than apparently everyone else.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he made up his own brand new Suffering Bastard cocktail, which he then served in his suffering bastard-shaped mug, which you can see pictures of up on our Facebook page at Mega Rock PA on Facebook.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is actually a variant on the famous Mai Thai.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It has Curacelle and rum and Orjat almond syrup, so it's really kind of just a variant on the original Mai Thai.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the Trader Vic version.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about how to make the original Joe's Shalom, World War II edition of The Suffering Bastard.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do this?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very simple because it reportedly didn't have a lot to work with at the hotel at the time.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start off with one half ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: To that, we're going to add several dashes of aromatic bitters.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You take your choice.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The story says he kind of just had to grab whatever he had on hand, but a lot of bitters really makes this drink well.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to take one full ounce of London Dried Gin and another full ounce of brandy.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Add all that to a shaker with ice.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Shake until that is chilled and diluted.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to add that in your Collins glass, or, if you want to, the suffering bastard mug.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to top that off with fresh ginger beer.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I like Goya for this because it's nice and spicy, has a little bit of a red pepper flavor.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Stir that a little bit, you're going to garnish with a mint sprig, stick in your straw, and sip! And as they say, suffer in silence.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to up the ante, if you haven't suffered enough, you can turn this into a dying bastard by changing our gin and brandy amounts and adding a little bit of bourbon.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to do 3 quarter ounce each of gin, brandy, and bourbon.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's still not enough for you, you can go with 3 quarter ounce each of gin, brandy, bourbon, and a good dark rum, and that's how you get the dead bastard.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But enough about that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the story of the suffering bastard from his earliest origins in World War II, all the way up through the tiki heyday of the 60s and into modern tiki times as well.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, until we meet on another island out there somewhere, this is Ben Willis saying Aloha for Tiki Talk, and we're going to send you off with an homage to the suffering bastard and all the sufferings he goes through, wherever he may be.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's Matt Spike Marble and the Hula Girls Suffering Bastard on Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.