In my occasional forays into researching Tiki drink historical past and its early components, I’ve spent a variety of time monitoring down when passionfruit turned one of many style’s canonical components. It could shock you that passionfruit syrup doesn’t look like a primordial ingredient available to Don the Beachcomber and Dealer Vic once they swung excessive gear after prohibition. There’s additionally a associated line of inquiry about what position passionola (and later, fassionola) performed in Tiki’s early days. So, let’s take a spin by means of the newspapers and books of the day to see what we are able to be taught.

References to “ardour fruit syrup” and “passionfruit syrup” had been uncommon within the Thirties and Forties. When talked about, it’s normally inside a tutorial context, e.g., Bulletin 77 of the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station (1939) or in cookbooks. The Hilo Lady’s Guide Membership (1943) notes two various kinds of ardour fruit (“water-lemon” and “lilikoi”) and features a recipe for ardour fruit syrup:

Mentions of passionfruit syrup in cocktail books are few and much between within the Thirties and Forties. Don and Vic weren’t sharing their recipes with abandon the best way we do at present. Dealer Vic’s not too long ago uncovered Maori Punch recipe (1949) requires “ardour fruit juice imported from Australia.” Given the recipe’s different components, we are able to fairly assume the “juice” was sweetened, maybe to the purpose of being a syrup. It was not referred to as passionfruit syrup, although. Maybe it went underneath a special identify commercially?

Passionola

If we step again to 1946, when Dealer Vic first printed his Dealer Vic’s Meals and Drinks, you received’t discover the phrase passionfruit and even ardour talked about wherever. What we discover, nonetheless, is an early reference to passionola – sure, with a ‘p,’ not an ‘f’ – within the recipe for the Tonga bowl drink:

Dealer Vic had competitors early on in incorporating passionola into recipes. A 1943 newspaper article titled Passionola Hits City notes:

Fred Wilke at Kitty Davis’ has obtained unique Florida rights to Passionola, commerce identify of the liquid extract, and has launched it on the theater-restaurant within the type of The Passionola Bomber and The Passionola Cooler.

These are tall, frosty, fruit trimmed drinks of marvelous efficiency, throat and eye attraction! Clients are ordering them by the lots of each night time.

The Bomber is rose-colored and incorporates:

• 2 jiggers of rum
• 2 jiggers of Ardour Fruit
• 1 jigger of pineapple
• 1 jigger of lime

The “Cooler” is green-tinted and is made with gin as a substitute of rum.

This definitely appears like a Tiki drink recipe to me! By the way, the Kitty Davis’ talked about within the first sentence is Kitty Davis’ Airliner, a Miami nightclub set in an airplane.

Though not a tropical drink, one other early reference to passionola in blended drinks is a Southern Consolation commercial from 1942 noting it was “value attempting” a jigger of SoCo, a half-jigger of passionola, ice cubes, and topped with champagne.

Whereas we could not definitively know when passionola was first bought as a business product, we do know the identify was trademarked within the US in 1943:

A 1944 passionola ad notes it’s a Ardour Fruit Product and “The Style Thrill of the Century!” Moreover, three variations had been accessible:

• GOLD — pure, tropical ardour fruit taste
• RED — harking back to wealthy, pink cherries
• GREEN — with the tasty tartness of lime.

How would possibly we use the assorted variations? A liquor retailer ad made options:

• gold passionola with rum
• Pink passionola with tequila
• Inexperienced passionola with gin or vodka. (I discover it attention-grabbing that the inexperienced “lime” fassionola wasn’t paired with tequila.)

Maybe this early “gold passionola” was merely passionfruit syrup as we all know it at present? And was it the identical passionola that Vic’s Tonga recipe used? We could by no means know.

RIP Passionola

We don’t we hear about passionola at present? What occurred?

Would you imagine a congressional investigation?

Buried inside a 1963 US authorities report entitled Frauds and Quackery Affecting the Older Citizen, Hearings Earlier than the Particular Committee on Growing older, United States Senate, is that this masterpiece of bureaucratic writing:

SEX PILLS

Different medicine are bought to make up for lack of vigor and sexual weak spot … We not too long ago turned conscious of a corporation which masquerades underneath a religio-scientiflc identify urging readers to submit by mail sums or $10 or $20 for “Stagg Bullets” and “Real Passionola,” the previous for males and the latter tor girls. The commercial refers to older women and men who are actually in a position to do what they believed they may not in any other case accomplish due to their superior years …. The phrases and commercials for “Stagg” and “Ardour” don’t describe the merchandise as blood builders and tonics however as marvels that may make a person no matter age romantic, younger, potent and virile because the gods.

Though the phrase “intercourse” is just not used “one doesn’t want a magnifying glass to see it.”… “Real Passionola” contained sugar, juices of pineapple, papaya, peach, apricot, apple, grape, and keenness fruit.

So, yeah… that’s an attention-grabbing learn! The ingredient itemizing on the finish is a pleasant bonus. I counsel you begin your subsequent batch of Analog Fassionola utilizing this newfound data!

Fassionola

Unsurprisingly, references to passionola in books and newspapers plummeted after 1963. Whereas this isn’t too shocking, we’ve to surprise concerning the timing of a trademark for fassionola granted by the US Patent Workplace in 1964, i.e., the very subsequent 12 months! The trademark does be aware, nonetheless, “First use as early as 1945”. The thriller continues…

There’s far more to the story I don’t have time for right here, and I’m anxiously awaiting the publication of Fassionola – The Torrid Story of Cocktails’ Most Mysterious Ingredient by Gregorio Pantoja and Martin S. Lindsay. I’m certain they’ll fill in lots of extra gaps within the story and I can’t anticipate my copy to reach.