BANANA DAIQUIRI

BANANA DAIQUIRI

1 ½ ounce rum

1 ounce lime juice

1 ounce créme de banana

Tablespoon triple sec

Teaspoon sugar or simple syrup

Small banana

Ice

Happy Birthday to the original second banana Vivian Vance! She’s most famous for playing Ethel Mertz on the classic I Love Lucy show in the 1950s. Surprisingly, I know a lot about Viv. I’m working on a non-fiction book tentatively titled, Difficult Child, Successful Adult. It’s about people who were very difficult and got into a lot of trouble during their childhood years, but grew up to be wildly successful. It’s a comfort book for parents whose children are driving them crazy.

Vivian Vance fit the criteria for my book and it wasn’t easy to find girls to include. Her stubbornness and rebelliousness drove her religious parents mad, but it was that same determination that resulted in a career that spanned 10 Broadway plays, 20 television shows and five movies. Viv also had a big heart and was one of the first celebrities to speak out about mental illness. More on her later. First — the cocktail.

I chose a BANANA DAIQUIRI because, even though Viv was use to being the star, she played second banana off Lucille Ball to perfection. Plus I love bananas. To make the BANANA DAIQUIRI, I put everything in the list above into a blender. I used coconut rum instead of regular rum, which I think improved the cocktail, and about two handfuls of ice to make one large drink. And boy was the result good, especially for a banana loving girl like me! I’ve always thought strawberry was my favorite flavor of daiquiri, but that has now been officially changed to banana. The one I made was like a slice of heaven. The banana flavor was “subtle” tropical, not “in your face” tropical like pineapple. The BANANA DAIQUIRI was smooth, creamy and delicious. I could have had several and I’m sure Viv would have loved it.

Just for kicks, following is an excerpt from my unfinished, unpublished book about Vivian Vance’s high school years in the 1920s:

Boys were another high school pastime of Viv’s that drove her mother to the brink of insanity.  She was very popular with the boys in her school and even dated boys from other towns — scandalous behavior in those days.  Old friends say she was boy crazy and went out with any boy who asked her, much to the shame of her parents and family.  Viv’s parents didn’t permit her to have dates for high school dances so, not one to passively accept constraints; she had lots of other dates.  Once when Mae (her mother) tried to stop her from going out on a date, she got a friend to put a ladder under her bedroom window so she could escape.  Her fascination with the opposite sex even lead her to vandalize school property:  Years after she became a television star, her name, along with that of her boyfriend at the time, was found carved into a desk at her high school. 

Vivian Vance (right) with Lucille Ball

Going out with any boy who asked her nearly got Viv paralyzed one crazy evening when she had traveled out of town to compete in a recital.  The recital was sponsored by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Viv’s mother was thrilled for a change.  Little did she know what Viv was up to the night before the competition.  That night, Viv was at the hotel when she took a drive with a college boy she had just met.  He parked the car somewhere out in the country, and took out a flask and a bottle of near-beer.  He poured some of the beer out, topped it off with the stuff in the flask, then turned the can upside down for a minute to make a “shot-beer.”  After drinking several shots, Viv couldn’t feel her lips.  Then she couldn’t see!  She somehow made it back to her hotel room and her friends nursed her through the night.  She was hard-headed enough to still give her recital at the competition the next day, though she was wobbly.  She even won — making her mother very proud.  Viv later learned that she had drank embalming fluid and barely missed being paralyzed for life!

Drink Up^

Cocktail Connie