Whether or not a blessing or a curse, fame – measured at present by the variety of social media followers a celeb has – can deliver its privileged recipients huge wealth, energy, and affect. However there are different, smaller, and extra obscure advantages for these whose lives and careers are touched by stardom. Some well-known individuals have been honored by having their names related to fossils (Johnny Depp), airports (John Lennon), crabs (Michael Jackson and David Hasselhoff), dinosaurs (Mark Knopfler), and ferns (Girl Gaga). And no scarcity of stars have had drinks named after them – arguably none of that are as iconic because the margarita, which, legend has it, was named after Peggy Lee.
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How did the margarita get its title?
Among the many stars who’ve had drinks named after them are Hollywood actresses Mary Pickford and Jean Harlow, and singers equivalent to Janis Joplin and, extra just lately, David Bowie. One of many world’s best-known cocktails is meant to have been impressed by the legendary jazz singer Peggy Lee, who was an fanatic of the so-called “devil’s brew.” Provided that, it’s no shock, maybe, that she impressed a bartender to concoct a drink in her honor.
That drink was the margarita, which, in response to legend, was invented in 1948 when the North Dakota singer (whose actual title was Norma Deloris Egstrom) sat on the prime of the US pop charts together with her Latin-inspired track “Mañana (Is Soon Enough For Me).” Throughout that point, she carried out on the Balinese Room, constructed on Galveston pier in Texas. It was there that the venue’s bartender, Santos Cruz, a religious Lee fan, purportedly mixed tequila with triple sec and served it to the singer with a wedge of lime in a salt-rimmed glass. His title for it, margarita, was a Spanish model of “Margaret,” from which derives the diminutive title Peggy.
Peggy Lee’s favourite drink
A dialogue on the fan discussion board web page of Lee’s web site, within the wake of the singer’s dying in 2002, speculated on her function within the creation of the margarita. Although some deemed the hyperlink to be tenuous, one fan claimed to have visited the Balinese Room and witnessed documentation there authenticating the creation of the drink, which was a variation of Lee’s supposed favourite tipple, a cocktail known as The Sidecar. Paradoxically, in 2008, Hurricane Rita destroyed The Balinese Room. Although the venue is not standing, Nathan Cruz, the grandson of the venue’s legendary bartender, maintains that his household was liable for creating the margarita, as impressed by Peggy Lee.
Peggy Lee isn’t, nevertheless, the one feminine star whose historical past is tied to the tequila-based cocktail. Some contend that flame-haired Hollywood film siren Rita Hayworth was its inspiration, whereas others say that one Marjorie King, a Ziegfeld dancer, had the cocktail made in her honor in Mexico by Carlos “Danny” Herrera in 1938. A well-heeled American, Margarita Sames, from Dallas, vehemently disputed this, claiming she created the drink for her associates at her vacation dwelling in Acapulco. So as to add extra confusion, Jose Cuervo – the well-known Mexican tequila firm – acknowledged in considered one of their adverts that the cocktail’s genesis could be traced again to Palm Springs in 1938, because of a Mexican showgirl known as Rita De La Rosa.
Whereas the provenance of the margarita is shrouded in thriller, one factor is abundantly clear: the drink’s reputation has grown exponentially through the years – a lot in order that, on each February 22, the US celebrates Nationwide Margarita Day. Now, in fact, the drink could be purchased pre-mixed in cans, bottles, and even frozen pouches, so there is no such thing as a motive to journey to Galveston – and even Palm Springs or Mexico – to style it. Cheers, everybody! (Or, as they are saying down Mexico manner: salud!)
