Simon Mattacks
speaker
2,981 appearances
17 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Sep
Simon Mattacks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
These umbrellas were placed outside cafes, restaurants, and on beaches.
During the mass tourism boom of the late 1950s and 60s, beach umbrellas became increasingly widespread in vacation resorts worldwide.
A rise in the number of charter flights had made it possible for sun seekers to reach warmer climes in just a few hours.
On sandy beaches, rows of umbrellas provided protection from the sun's rays.
They were shady spaces where one could relax, read a book, or listen to music with a cocktail in hand.
It was also around this time that the cocktail umbrella first appeared in drinks.
The cute decorative item was made from paper and toothpicks, while cardboard ribs allowed it to open and close.
There are many theories about the origins of the cocktail umbrella.
Some say it was designed to shade the ice in tropical drinks, preventing it from melting on hot summer days.
Alternatively, it may have been a clever marketing tool.
Perhaps the aim was to attract women to the popular tiki bars that had opened following the Second World War.
According to some sources, a man named Don Beach invented the cocktail umbrella.
He was the charismatic owner of a tiki bar in Hollywood, who later moved to Hawaii.
speech is said to have got the idea for the cocktail umbrella from trips to the South Pacific.
He later sold his merchandise to the Trader Vic's chain.
Alternatively, the cocktail umbrella may have been popularized by the bartender Harry Yee.
Yi, who worked at a Hilton hotel in Hawaii, initially used orchids and then sugar cane sticks to garnish his fancy drinks.
But after patrons left the remnants in ashtrays, he started to garnish the drinks with paper parasols instead.
So while it was likely invented earlier, the first documented cocktail umbrella was used by Lee in 1959 in a drink called the Tapper Punch.
In the US, the trend quickly took off as part of the general enthusiasm for tiki culture at the time.
Showing 2281–2300 of 2,981 · page 115 of 150
← Previous
Next →