How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization - Cathy Crimmins [26]
In the pre-Food Network world, Julia Child was a constant reference in identifying gay “foodies” in the 1970s. Says one fan website of Paul Lynde, “[Most] of the articles about Paul from the 1970s dealt with his palatial Hollywood mansions or his inner Julia Child.”
The Cocktail Circle of Life
In the early 1990s, gay men reinvented the vintage drinks that were so much a part of the Waspy country-club scene after World War II. Straight people should be eternally grateful for being rescued from the drab 1980s days of the white-wine spritzers and rotgut Chardonnay served in tacky fern bars.
Gay men led the way to the $10 sipping cocktail with extravagant accoutrements. The cosmopolitan, the martini, the Manhattan, and more have all been gussied up with new ingredients so that they barely resemble the mixed drinks our parents loved. Along with the cocktails come the fabulous hors d’oeuvres—finger foods of the gods. Cocktail weenies are back, and mostly because gay hors d’oeuvres chefs put them out again. Yet gay cocktail weenies are always better, somehow. (Okay, hold the double entendres!) I have a friend who makes them out of the finest little dogs he can buy, and of course with a dash of irony. He brings them to every party he attends. He does them as pigs in blankets, but the “blanket” part is made out of puff pastry, not regular dough.
Cosmopolitans, especially, have made it into every mainstream bar in America. The girls on Sex and the City used to drink them until they became so common that they’re no longer hip. Now the Manhattan is edging out the cosmo, and straight people are experimenting with exotic flavored martinis, once very gay and now a fixture on the straight single bar scene.
A word here must be said about vodka, nectar of the gay gods. Gay men were in the forefront of the clear-liquor revolution, changing America from a “scotch on the rocks” country to a vodka martini kind of place. Absolut, which targeted gay consumers as early as the mid-eighties, has long been the gay vodka of choice. In its clever ads, Absolut began incorporating the work of gay artists such as Keith Haring, and the brand also participated in fashion promotional events, which increased its visibility in the gay community. Within a few years it was the number-one vodka in the gay market, and then became number one in the entire country.
The Future of Gay Cocktail Culture: Sex on the Beach for Everyone!
It was New Year’s Eve, 1989. I was eight months pregnant and in a predominantly gay restaurant. Alas, I could not drink. But after midnight had come, droves of half-naked men wandered around in a conga line, screaming “Sex on the beach! Who wants sex on the beach? Let’s have sex on the beach!” Of course, they were talking about the drink Sex on the Beach. But I’d never heard of it before. Although I can’t prove that the drink’s origins were gay, it was a few years more before I saw Sex on the Beach available at straight bars. It’s very difficult to pin down a drink’s history, but I did see one reference to Sex on the Beach on a straight, hyper-heterosexual bar menu listed as new, “the hottest drink of Summer 1999.” That was a good ten years after I first heard about it in gay venues.
A few years ago, gay friends told me about the Black Bitch, a drink made with Coke and vodka. What amused me most, though, was the Skinny Black Bitch, made with Diet Coke. Now those drinks are available in straight bars, as well as The Screaming Orgasm, an orangey, creamy concoction that has crossed over to the heterosexual cocktail world.
Of course, there are other descriptively named drinks served at gay bars throughout the country that are probably at least another decade away from making the transition to straight cocktails. The Anal Penetrator, for example, or the Anal