Louisiana Anthology

David Ervin.
A Frozen Solution.

© David Ervin.
Used by permission.
All rights reserved.

Stranger at the Bar
Chapter 1

Hawking frozen cocktails from a drive-thru window with the state of Louisiana, the city of Lafayette, and all the do-gooders hell-bent on destroying me was a brutal initiation for a twenty-five-year-old first-time business owner. Despite their best efforts, I prevailed, and with the multitude of imitators that followed, my daiquiri shop brainchild became a global phenomenon.

After a forty-year run, it was time to pay it forward, and consulting was my way of staying in the game. Although non-disclosure agreements make me the wizard behind the curtain, I am nonetheless gratified by being a small part of their success. I miss everything, the sounds, the smells, and the friendships, but most of all, I miss the joy of being a bright spot in the lives of so many.

All of Lafayette lionized me as the originator of the daiquiri shop concept; while in New Orleans, I could hide in plain sight, unchallenged, with no expectations. The French Quarter vibe was interesting enough to fill the voids of repetitious living, and like-minded bartenders tolerated my antics. In the late evenings, after the rum had its effects, colorful memories ran on a continuous loop, while behind tired eyes, loneliness shifted its load. Sometimes I awoke discontented, as if I had been somewhere I didn't want to leave.

Bold Hawaiian shirts were a fun way of saying I colored outside the lines, forged my own trails, and rode my own waves. All the toxic people in my life were long gone, and time had taught me that most of life's worries never happen. Thought-provoking conversations over a well-built cocktail and an understanding kitchen-friendly woman make my life worth living.

A brassy Dixieland jazz band sounding off in the middle of Bourbon Street interrupted the calm of a warm summer afternoon as I made my ritual Sunday stroll. Overflowing trash cans reek of the aftermath of a wild Saturday night. Pulsating drums and rhythms of brass and woodwind instruments mingle, swirl, and collide into the distinctive sounds of New Orleans Dixieland jazz. The music is infectious and never played the same way twice. Everyone prances by in a gleeful, rhythmic strut.

Bending down to drop a few bucks into an open trombone case captures every eye in the band. Breaking tempo, the trumpet player pulls his horn down, flashes a thumbs up, and mouths a silent thank you. The overt courtesy moves me to double down with three more dollars.

A block down, two enterprising young street performers with bottle caps glued to their soles are busy working a tap-dancing hustle behind a wicker tip basket. Their tap routine is conversational. One performer lays down a rhythm, and the other answers as charmed on-lookers stare in amazement. I empty my pocket change, prompting others to follow. Toothy smiles of validation break out as the duo shifts into a faster pace, edging ever closer to their audience.

Woven into the tapestry of Bourbon Street culture are daiquiri shops lining both sides of the street. The French Quarter without daiquiris is unimaginable, but there was a time when daiquiris were high-priced listings of one or two flavors on the back of soggy cocktail menus that went largely unnoticed. Visitors and many locals alike wrongly assume that the daiquiri shop concept originated here.

Drinking mimosas down at the 7-11 Club and grooving to pianist-singer Doug Duffey, a Monroe, Louisiana, prodigy killing it again to a packed house occupied most of the morning. Wandering into a Bourbon Street bar and enjoying a chance encounter with incredible talent is one of the most enduring charms of the French Quarter. These open-air venues have been a reliable revenue source for local musicians and troubadours for over 200 years.

A go-cup stroll further down Bourbon sits the Tropical Isle, one of my favorite haunts. Sipping on a Cuba libre, waiting for the band to crank back up, there is no place on earth where I would rather be. Sundays are departure days for most binge-drinking, selfie-stick-wielding tourists. The house band has the locals goose-necking to deep soothing blue notes.

Noticing my contentment, the bartender shouts, tongue in cheek, “Hey Dave, are we having fun yet?” Smiling, I said, “Yeah, you’re right; it can’t get much better than this.”

“Yeah… we are blessed; good blues often goes unappreciated,” he says as he slides a complimentary shot in front of me. Throwing it back, I winced into a Tonga Island warrior’s face as the alcohol seared my throat. “Whoa — damn! Fire in the hole! What the hell was that? Satan’s spit!?”

“Equal parts of Rumple Minze, J�germeister, and Goldschlager,” he quipped with a snarky grin. My outburst amuses, generates curiosity, and calls for Satan’s spit ring out. As each one is slammed back, colorful comments arouse more interest, and a chain reaction sweeps the entire bar. “Get help right away if you have swelling of your face, mouth, or tongue or have trouble breathing,” I advised.

Blues done right is always honest. It penetrates the soul and expresses the human condition better than anything else ever could. The heartfelt tunes seeping out of those old beat-up speakers can be traced back to the magic of Robert Johnson, the godfather of Delta blues. If he traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads to be the king of the blues and to have all the women and whiskey he wanted, it was a righteous sacrifice. “Step back, devil man,” he supposedly said, “I am the blues!”

The frontman notices me admiring his cherry red Gibson ES-355 guitar. “That dog ain’t for sale, but if you hang around, I’ll make her howl for you.”

Smiling, I commented, “It’s like BB King’s Lucille, but with F-holes.”

“Yeah, BB claimed they caused feedback, but I beg to differ. Got somethin’ ya wanna hear?”

“How about, Meet Me With Ya Black Drawers On?”

“Yeah, I dig that one too, but damn, dude… that’s an old song.”

“Well, hell… I’m old; what do you expect?”

Chuckling, he replied, “My regular drummer is out, and I hate to say, but my backup is a little too young for that one.” Then, grabbing his guitar off the stand, he slung the strap over his head and strummed a few tuning cords. “Here’s one I think you’re gonna like.”

The band belts out an Earl Hooker tune:

The atmosphere shifts into an eccentric mood as the local bohemians and Renaissance men stroll in during the late afternoon. A cornucopia of writers, artists, musicians, philosophers, adventurers, and other laissez-faire creatives all rendezvous for the music and camaraderie and to discuss the latest issues of the day. Like the fabled absinthe aficionados of the 1900s, each is distinguished by their peculiar eccentricities. Drink orders are non-verbal; eye contact with a nod springs the bartender into action.

Pam Fortner and Earl Bernhart, the proud proprietors, have been friends of mine since I moved here in ‘86’. Earl cruised into town from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to operate a daiquiri booth with an old college roommate during the ’84 World’s Fair. Pam, a Nashville native, joined the duo as a bartender.

The fair ended up a bust by most accounts, but daiquiri sales were through the roof. After the fair, Pam and Earl partnered and opened a themed bar called Tropical Isle and have been at it ever since. Early on, Pam created a specialty drink to differentiate Tropical Isle from all the other drinking dens pushing bastardized versions of the famous Pat O’Brian’s Hurricane. She invented a melon-flavored cocktail with a generous amount of booze, and christened it the Hand Grenade, proclaiming it New Orleans’ most potent drink. Her claim is righteous; nothing comes close.

The band breaks, I flip a cigarette into my mouth, and while searching for my lighter, I feel an unexpected tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I find myself face to face with an overly enthusiastic stranger smiling from ear to ear.

“Are you the guy… the one that… that opened the drive-thru daiquiri place in Lafayette, the guy James Karst wrote about in the Times-Picayune a while back? You were the first, right?”

“Yeah… that would be me,” I said, with an unlit Marlboro bouncing between my lips. “James is a great guy and a gifted writer. He has long moved on from newspaper gigs, last I heard. How’d you know how to find me?”

He took a deep, open-mouth gasping breath and explained, “A friend across the river in Algiers told me you always hang out here on Sundays.”

“Yeah, I guess old guys like me are more predictable the further we go past our sell-by date,” I said. “I’m just trying to stay out of everybody’s way and enjoy whatever time I have left. Coming down here helps to keep my blood thinned out.” Then, pointing to a wall covered in autographed celebrity photos, I said, “This bar affords me the privilege of meeting all sorts of interesting people from all over the world. The Count of Nicaragua gave me a standing invitation last week, and I’m seriously thinking about takin’em up on it.”

Pausing to light up, I flipped the cap on my Zippo, rolled the flint wheel, and took a deep draw on the struggling flame. The stranger stuck out his hand for an unwieldy introduction and exclaimed, “Hi, I’m Keith; pleased to meet you.” Exhaling an obnoxious double-barrel nostril blast, I laughed as we shook hands inside the smoke cloud while he hung onto my hand a few awkward seconds too long. “Pleased to meet you too, Keith. I’m David Ervin; friends call me “Tater.”

“Tell me the story. How did the idea come about? Why did you choose Lafayette? Sorry I have so many questions.”

“Lafayette is a celebration of a way of life that excites something in you that no other place can. I discovered its charms by chance back in ’75 when I stopped by on my way back to Ruston from working in the offshore oil fields. I fell in love with the city and almost every woman I met and vowed to someday return for good. Six years later, I finally made it happen and was fortunate to have enjoyed a forty-year ride on my one big idea. That decision has given me an amazing life.

“Requests like yours happen from time to time. Lately, there’s been more than usual after Adam Daigle’s interview landed on the front pages of the Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. That article got me a meeting at PJ’s coffee with Congressman Steve Scalise and his friend Tommy Cvitanovich, the Dragos Seafood owner who famously created charbroiled oysters. I told myself a while back to start getting compensated, so if you want to hear the story… it’s gonna cost you a couple of drinks. How many depends, of course, on how much you want to hear.”

“No problem, David. What are you drinking?”

“Cuba libre, always Cuba libre. One part Myers’s dark rum, two parts Coke, and two generous lime wedges squeezed till they beg for mercy; goes down like a fat kid on a seesaw. I’ll go on as long as there’s a drink in front of me. You keep me drinking, and I’ll keep talking… deal?”

“Deal! Bartender, please get my new friend here another round.”

“No… um, I’m good for now. I just got this one before you showed up. You can get the next one… but I have no objection to making it number one on our hit parade if you are so inclined.”

“No problem, it’s on me. Let’s hear the story.”

“Thanks, I’ll do a quick synopsis, hit a few highlights, and if you’re still here, and you ain’t broke, I’ll circle back to the beginning and give you the long version.”

“Cool… I want to hear everything.”

Giving each lime wedge a final twist, I tamped each one under the ice with the thin black cocktail straw, licked it clean, and slid it into my shirt pocket. Sucking the lime juice off my fingers, I wiped them dry with the ringed cocktail napkin under my glass.

“Okay, Keith, you asked for it… here we go. Lafayette’s city officials were at odds with my drive-thru daiquiri concept from day one. No law was against it, so the city council decided to create one. For the first time in Lafayette’s history, driving within the city limits with an open alcoholic beverage would be illegal. The business exploded; took off faster than I had ever imagined. The learning phase I had counted on was wishful thinking; I had to hit the ground running. Every day was a struggle to keep the train on the track and running on time. We opened at 8 a.m.; cars started lining up at 7.”

“No way! You’re telling me people were buying daiquiris at 8 in the morning?!”

“Yep, in the beginning, that’s the way it went, every day except Sunday when we had to close because of a blue law.” I continued my monologue, which by now, I knew by rote:

We had more business than we could handle. By 10 o’clock, the ends of the lines in both directions were too far to see. Sales were limited by how many cups we could fill and hand out through the window. The bottleneck was the time it took to receive payment and make change. Prices were rounded to an even quarter to speed things up. I could usually tell what flavor repeat customers wanted by the color of their tongues. In its heyday, we averaged anywhere from four to six thousand customers daily. I didn’t realize it then, but in a city of 85,000, that works out to be around five to seven percent of the entire population.

Within a few weeks, the business made national headline news. Everyone wanted to know how a drive-thru bar concept could be legal. Many wanted to see what was creating all the commotion firsthand. Customers poured in from New Orleans, Lake Charles, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge and packed gallons in ice chests for the ride home. Many left with entire trunks loaded down and T-shirts sold by the dozen. On weekends they came in from as far away as Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta for a daiquiri baptism in the heart of Cajun country.

The store became a tourist mecca; cameras flashed non-stop. Postcards could have made a fortune if we woulda had ’em. The Daiquiri Factory wasn’t just a bar; it was a new experience, a new way people connected, an exotic new way to enjoy alcohol. I liked to say each drink was a 20-minute cruise to a place you’ve never been, with a lot less chance of drowning.

The success I enjoyed wasn’t because of my business prowess. I was a 25-year-old dreamer with zero experience who had stumbled onto an incredible opportunity almost by accident. I was fortunate to have had the right people behind me from the beginning. Luck, fate, and circumstances forced many favorable events to happen at the most opportune times. I, of course, got credit for it all, but in truth, I was flying by the seat of my pants, clueless and terrified most of the time. It was an insane risky thing to try to do, but I didn’t need much reason. It excited me as much as it scared me and was too intriguing to ignore. I didn’t know what to expect and was as surprised as anyone else when the business took off the way it did. My claim to fame, if there is any, is I was crazy enough to try something no one with good sense ever would. I never looked beyond my headlights and never dreamed I would find myself in the crosshairs of a corrupt political machine and the focus of a national controversy. I probably would have never started if I knew what I was getting myself into. Ignorance is sometimes bliss.

Fortunately, the avalanche of instant cash offset mistakes that would have tanked any average business. Hiring and training employees couldn’t happen until I had time to figure things out. An anxious period of trial and error and inventiveness explored every right and wrong way to do everything. Eventually, human effort and random happenstance came together in perfect harmony.

When operational logistics became overwhelming, I recruited Harold Parker, a childhood friend, as general manager. Cathy Williams, my girlfriend, was assigned bookkeeping and office management duties. As business increased, a leased warehouse facilitated inventory demands and enough offices to sublease.

The three of us worked in our areas of responsibility and evolved into a proficient team uniquely geared to facilitate a concept the world had never seen. There was a culture of mutual respect, a can-do team spirit, and a belief that we could make anything happen.

A typical day had me seated at my desk on the phone with three lines flashing. Cathy is in her office juggling calls, clicking in with courteous reassurances during long time lapses to keep callers from hanging up. Bright yellow posted notes (a recent invention) flagged the edge of my credenza, reminding me of luncheons, meetings, and anything important she thought I’d forget.

A 57-ounce can of Coco Lopez cream of coconut sits on my African mahogany desk. I lean forward in my office chair, squinting to recite the address on the label to an international directory assistance operator.

“Coco Lopez, in Puerto Rico… yes, Puerto Rico… operator, I need a number for the company Coco Lopez. Yes, yes, that would be wonderful. Please connect me. I am okay with the connection fee. I don’t care how much it is; please just put the call through.”

An exotic feminine Spanish voice punctuates four long ringtones. “Coco López… Cómo puedo dirigir tu llamada?” (How may I direct your call?)

“Usted habla inglés?” (Do you speak English?) I asked.

“Una Momento.” (One moment)

The call transfers to a bilingual English-speaking receptionist.

“Si, ingles, (Yes, English), how can I be of assistance?”

“Could you get me someone in sales, anybody — just someone in sales?”

“From what city are you calling? What is the nature of your call?”

“My name is David Ervin. I am calling from Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. I have bought all the 57-ounce cans of Coco Lopez in the entire state of Louisiana, and I need more.”

“Hold, please.”

After a brief wait, an international sales director asks, “Sir, what is the name of your distribution company?”

“Please understand that I’m a retailer who bought your distributor’s entire inventory. He tells me he won’t have anything for another week. I can’t wait a week. I need it now!”

“Please tell me what quantity and product size you require.”

“The big 57-ounce cans. Right now, I would take 2 pallets if I could get em. I don’t want the small cans. We have to open too many; we don’t have time to fool with ’em.”

“Mr., um… pardon me, sir, what did you say your name was again, please?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Errr-vvvin, E-R-V-I-N, Echo-Romeo-Victor-India-November. My first name is David.”

“Thank you, Mr. David Ervin. Your request is highly unusual. Are you sure you are using the 57-ounce size? Our smaller cans are more popular with retail sales. Why are you opening them? Are you repackaging the product?”

“Sir, please understand… I’m not a grocer or a liquor store, and I’m not repackaging anything. I operate a drive-thru bar specializing in daiquiris and frozen cocktails. I sell hundreds of gallons of pina coladas every week. I only want the big cans.”

“A drive-thru daiquiri bar? Interesting… very interesting. I can’t say I have heard of such a business.”

“It’s the only one in the world, so there is no way you could have heard of it. Nobody has heard of it. I just invented it.”

After a long pause, he came back. “My records show your distributor headquartered in New Orleans received five pallets four weeks ago. Does this distributor service all of your locations?”

“Sir, I only have one store, but understand, I have no problem buying your product in pallet quantities.”

“My God, did I hear you correctly? Your usage is that high with just one bar?”

“Yes, and I have a warehouse to inventory supplies.”

“That’s incredible! Please hold for a moment.” A few minutes later, he announces, “I can move a pallet from Alabama to New Orleans by tomorrow, but no one is answering in New Orleans. I have no way of knowing when it can arrive in Lafayette.”

“No problem, give me an ETA (expected time of arrival) on the New Orleans shipment; I’ll drive down there and pick it up. I need it ASAP.”

“Oh… I see. Allow me to inquire; please hold.” Then, after another long pause, he comes back. “Mr. Ervin, the freight line expects it to arrive tomorrow around 2 or 3 p.m. I can send the other pallet from Houston by the end of the week. Will this accommodate your needs?”

“Yes, that will be fantastic. Thank you. No rush on the second one, we will be fine for a while with one, but we will gladly receive it. Just get it headed our way.”

Hanging up overjoyed, I yelled down the hall to Cathy. “Tell Harold I have not one, but two coming. We’ll have the first one late tomorrow evening, so he can send all those small cans back… and tell’em he owes me five bucks.”

Speaking through the intercom, Cathy interrupts my celebration. “Tater, you need to take line 2. He’s getting antsy, and I’m about to lose’em.”

Hurriedly clicking on the line, I said, “Sorry to keep you holding. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“Wesley… Dave, this is Wes; you called?”

“Yeah, yeah… its been crazy around here, Wes. Sorry about the wait. How much middle-of-the-road tequila ya got?”

“Not sure, Dave. I will have to check the warehouse and get back to you. I won’t know until this afternoon. I can’t trust the warehouse guys. The new dot matrix encoding on the case boxes is hard to read and confuses em.”

“Oh, okay… don’t worry about it. Just send a pallet (56 cases) or as close to it as possible. Match whatever you send with triple sec. Throw in a pallet of white rum too. I could use twenty cases of 151 rum, a half pallet of 190.”

“How are you on amaretto, blue curacao, bourbon, vodka, gin, melon and coffee liquor?”

“I don’t know… and I don’t have time to check. Add ten cases of everything I usually order that I haven’t mentioned.”

“ Got it, Dave. When can we talk about your sweet and sour?”

“Forget about it; Master of Mixes is the best on the planet. It’s in almost everything. There’s no way in hell I’m changing.”

“Oh, and one more thing, please ask your driver to start picking up the empty pallets. Space in my dumpsters is tight, and I have no easy way of getting rid of ’em. I’m sorry, but I need to run, and please accept my apologies for the wait. Call back when you can and let Cathy know what you can send. I’ll be out the rest of the day and most of tomorrow. See ya later.”

Clicking line three, an anxious food distributor exclaims, “Dave, good news! We can send another thirteen pails of strawberries and, say… fifteen cases of orange juice concentrate. Will that get you out of the weeds till next week?”

“Well… it might… but then again, it might not. My forecast was off a lot last week, and we had to do another strawberry raid at the grocery stores. Speaking of that, what’s the story on your strawberry shipment?”

“Dave, my broker is telling me the labor strike in Mexico is a real problem with the growers and…

“Please forgive my interruption… but somebody else’s problem is becoming my problem. If I have to send someone to Jackson after strawberries like the last time you dropped the ball, the sooner I know, the better. All I ask is that you stay on top of this and keep me posted. If I don’t hear anything good by Monday evening, Tuesday morning at the latest, I’m gonna have to pull the trigger and assume you are dead in the water, AGAIN!”

“Dave, what am I supposed to do with all this inventory if it arrives late?”

“What I don’t have room for, you will have to sit on, I guess. I don’t know what to tell you, but you must understand I can’t risk running out of strawberries. That’s like McDonalds’ running out of hamburger meat, for Christ’s sake! Strawberry daiquiri is our lifeblood. Hell, it’s the only real daiquiri we have. I installed a walk-in freezer to keep this from happening, and all I asked you to do was to keep the damn thing full. Why is that such a problem? Send over everything you have. I hate to cut you off, but I’ve gotta go. See ya.”

Cathy intercoms in, “Tater, the T-shirt people are on line 4 asking about our order. Wanna talk to ’em?”

“No… no, I don’t have time. Tell ’em to keep duplicating our last order until further notice. Tell ’em we’ll buy everything they can send. If they need any money, find out how much and send ’em a check, and don’t hold up anything waiting on an invoice. Please handle it. I have to go. The store is almost out of 20-ounce cups.”

Filling the bed of my El Camino with boxes of 20-ounce cups and lids, I head out into gridlock traffic, praying I’ll make it in time. Almost half the business is in the 20-ounce medium size. Customers are more inclined to downsize to a 12-ounce rather than upsize to our 32-ounce large size if unavailable. A typical thirty-minute drive becomes three hours this late on a Saturday evening.

Harold moved two truckloads of liquor and supplies to the store earlier but didn’t have time to return for the cups. Cup boxes are light and bulky and need tying down for transit. That lesson was learned the hard way a while back after losing a full load on top of the Mississippi River Bridge returning from Baton Rouge.

Arriving within eyesight of the store, I stand inside the door well, waving my arms over my head to attract the attention of the employee assigned to rotate ingredients in and trash out. Sprinting up out of breath, he exclaims, “Just in time, we are down to our last sleeve!”

“Hurry, they’ll be out before you get back!” I yelled. His mad dash to the store with the refrigerator-size box on his shoulder and an oblong box of lids under his arm was a curious sight. An hour later, frantic employees offloaded everything onto the ground.

It’s another typical Saturday afternoon. Customer traffic has been bumper to bumper since 7 a.m. About half of everything Harold delivered earlier sits outside the backdoor on the ground, waiting for space inside. Nooks and cracks where daiquiri mixes had seeped in, fermented, and dried into a sticky goo have the building reeking of a foul order I called daiquiri shop funk.

Customers gawk through the open back door in wonderment as they inch to the menu sign to place their orders. Chaotic behind-the-scene deplorable images of sweat-drenched employees toiling away are unavoidable; unrelenting equipment heat and repulsive smells have to escape somehow.

Locked in the bathroom, Harold is strapping and stacking proceeds inside a night deposit bank bag. Cash has to be pulled out of the register in 30-minute intervals to allow the drawer to close. Overseeing every workstation and jumping in where needed keeps him alert and in constant motion. An old briefcase chained to a counter leg is so jam-packed with cash that the one working brass clasp can barely snap shut. Finally, hearing my voice, he yells through the closed bathroom door, “Tater, how many ya got?”

“Brought six with lids.”

“Good deal, bout time you showed up!” he jokes as he grabs the clipboard with the inventory sheet and scribbles 3,000 under the starting 20-ounce cup tally. “Shift change is about to commence,” he announces.

“Are they gonna hit the number?” I ask.

“I think so; they’ve been rolling. We’ll know in a second. I’m about to take an X-reading.”

The second shift cash register drawer sits organized and staged on the toilet tank lid. Shift change is a choreographed ballet of exchanging spent bodies for fresh ones in under a minute. The abrupt metallic clanking of employees clocking in and out summons Harold with the second shift register drawer.

Ceremoniously inserting his manager key and entering the code, the business halts as the register grinds out the running total. Tearing off a 10-inch paper tape, he scans the faint purple numerals, and a grin creeps across his face, followed by a chuckle. “Gosh, dang Tater… you ain’t gonna believe this. They passed the golden number by over 12 hundred!” High fives abound, and the crew breaks out in a prideful celebration as they divide the tip jar money.

Slamming in the second shift drawer, Harold walks to the back of the store with the overflowing cash register drawer and the briefcase. The entire first shift stands outside the back door, smiling like kids on Christmas morning. “Congratulations, I think ya’ll just set a new record!” he proclaims as he rewards each outstretched hand with a cash bonus. The second crew executes a seamless transition like a disciplined track and field relay team determined to break the new record. Harold staples the X-reading to the inventory sheet and verifies the cashier’s signature.

The operation demands an incredible amount of change. There is no safe, so Harold and I always keep a 25-pound box of quarters ($500) and a thousand ones in our vehicles and coordinate to ensure that one of us is always nearby. Towers of stacked empty liquor cases ring the overflowing dumpsters, and everyone’s shoes are filthy from compacting trash.

The serving window is the operation’s heart, soul, and most coveted position. It carries a festive vibe and a sensation that you are hosting one party after another, all seething with positive energy. Tip jar money is constantly changed into larger bills to make extra space as thousands show gratitude.

Pivoting around on the bar stool for a cigarette break, I am surprised by a sea of wide-eyed millennials staring back in stunned amazement. Their youthful enthusiasm made me feel a little bit young again, and I realized I had recalled a time before they were born-when their parents were most likely becoming of legal drinking age. The shocking reality was none of them had ever known a world without daiquiri shops. Their first exposure to alcohol was most likely a daiquiri scammed from a drive-thru by one of their older friends.

Daiquiri shops now dot the landscape like so many ant hills and have become a celebrated part of the Louisiana experience for any first-time visitor. Daiquiri enthusiasts share a sense of pride in being from a state where drive-thru daiquiri shops have become a unique part of its cultural mystique. My narrative was the untold story, a rare opportunity to learn first-hand how a part of their cultural history originated, spoken from the lips of one who had been a living actor in it. Sporadic questions erupted, and every word I uttered was considered the daiquiri gospel.

“To the annoyance of cocktail purists, I’m the guy responsible for bastardizing the word daiquiri to just mean a frozen drink with booze,” I said. “My only offering that met the true definition was strawberry daiquiri.”

The moment made me feel archaic and a bit Smithsonian. They gloated over me with high reverence as if I were Andrew Jackson chatting about the battle of New Orleans over a few cocktails. In retrospect, I am old, old enough to be their grandfather. It was nevertheless flattering that anyone wandering through a bar would be interested enough to eavesdrop on the exploits of a crusty old dinosaur like me — a living fossil that had been around back when the earth was still cooling.

Turning my drink straight up, resting it against pursed lips, I waited to savor the last few drops as they percolated through the ice. Then I swirled my fingers, capturing the spent lime slices stripping and eating the rum-infused rust-colored pulp. The intermission prompts Keith to ask, “So what happened next?”

Several young daiquiri disciples wearing out-of-season Mardi Gras beads feather boas bellowed in unison, “C’mon, man, ya can’t stop now. ya gotta finish the story!”

Drawing deep on a smoldering Marlboro, my words mingled in the thin wispy layers of smoke as I talked through my exhale. “What’s supposed to happen now, Keith?” I asked. His bewildered expression tried my patience. “Keith… you must have the memory span of a housefly!”

“Oh, sorry… sorry,” he muttered, casting his eyes downward. “Yes, yes, of course. What was it again you said you were drinking?”

“What? Did you forget that too? Cuba libre. It means free Cuba. Rum, Coke, and lime. Mexican Coke, if ya got it. It was the slogan of the Cuban independence movement during the Spanish-American War. They had rum, we had Cokes, and some unsung genius had the brilliant idea to mix’em and add lime to take it up a few notches.

Rum is my preference. It’s the only time I get to be a pirate. I like lucid absinthe, but at 124-proof, the green fairy is not my friend. You could start up a chainsaw with that stuff! It’s hallucinogenic and has wormwood oil in it. You’ll see noises and hear color, and there’s a chance you might wake up in the woods naked!”

Anxiously scanning the bar, Keith yells, “Where’s the bartender? Somebody find him. We need a Cuba libre down here.”

At the far end of the bar, a voluptuous soiled dove with a strong cleavage game, trading smiles for drinks, has the bartender in full tilt. Flailing my arm as if I were hailing a taxi, I yell out, “Bartender! I would like another one of your masterpieces at your earliest convenience, just like the last one. Don’t change a thing. And please start Keith a tab. He and I are gonna vacation here for a while. Put all my drinks on Keith’s tab… he says he likes me… and has a lot of money. Get Keith whatever’s open that’s brown.” The bar erupted into laughter as Keith smiled and raised his arm with a Roman Emperor’s thumbs-up gesture prompting the bartender to snap into action.

With a fresh drink and a clean ashtray in front of me, I squeezed the limes and poked each one to the bottom with the thin black cocktail straw. Then, passing the straw between my lips, I slid it into my shirt pocket and continued.

“I want to start from the beginning and give you a brief background of myself, where I came from, and the people who made it all possible. A complicated puzzle of ideas and steps had to come together before I sold the first drink. The Daiquiri Factory lived in my mind long before I could make it happen.

Self-doubt and negative opinions haunted me. In the beginning, Mike Mikell, my frat brother, kindred spirit, and roommate, was among the few who didn’t think I had lost my mind. To everyone else, I was a prime candidate for the Gomer Award for seriously considering such a crazy idea. No one believed a drive-thru bar could be legal.

After months of studying liquor laws, the legal question remained, so to find the answer, I had to launch the concept, risk arrest, and hope for the best, so that’s what I did. I ignored all the naysayers, went with my gut feeling, and refused to quit. Ultimately, it proved to be the best decision I could have made. The business took off like a runaway train, with me hanging on by the seat of my pants. Watching my wildest dream come true was the most thrilling moment of my life, and I knew nothing would ever be the same.

The story begins in Ruston, Louisiana, while I was a student at Louisiana Tech. I lived large, drove a high-performance Corvette that could outrun anything but a helicopter. Summer stints in the offshore oil fields allowed for a no-holes-barred privileged lifestyle.

Mike and I were party animals known for our open-invitation epic barbeques and birthday bashes. We lived life out loud, took care of each other, shared everything, and never kept score. Every day was Saturday, and every night was Saturday night. Our time together was so much fun; we just drank beer all day and said, “What’s next?” Spontaneous tequila runs to Mexico and high-spirited adventures with no destinations kept us entertained. Life was simple. There were no cell phones and no social media. Fun was possible without the whole world creeping in. I’ll do my best to take you back there, but before we shift gears, I need a shot of something to get my neurons firing.”

“No problem,” Keith offers. “Whatever you want, David, it’s my pleasure. But before we get started, ya gotta tell me… what’s the deal with you keeping all those straws in your pocket?”

“How else am I supposed to know how many drinks I’ve had?”

With that, everyone within earshot reached for their straw.

“Mr. Bartender… please get me another shot of Satan’s spit!”

In 1981, I resigned from Louisiana Tech University to open “The Daiquiri Factory Ltd.,” the world’s first drive-thru daiquiri bar in Lafayette, Louisiana. After spending months studying liquor laws with no conclusive answer to the concept’s legality, I launched the business under the premise that it would be legal if I wasn’t arrested within the first week. To the dismay of city officials, there were no laws prohibiting the sale of frozen cocktails out of a drive-thru window. The business was wildly successful, attracting five to seven percent of the population (four to six thousand) daily, retiring the original loan within the first three weeks of operations. The ensuing white-hot controversy attracted a national audience, most notably MADD. After months of deliberations, Lafayette’s city council finally drafted an open container ordinance that would, in their collective judgments, shut the rogue business down for good. But, to their frustrated disappointment, the property was twenty feet outside the city limits, providing the Daiquiri Factory complete immunity.

To dispel notions of a business closure, I launched a grand opening promotion the day the ordinance went active, famously advertising a complimentary bottle of champagne to its first four thousand customers. An estimated ten thousand responded, snarling traffic for miles. State Police dispatched to disperse the crowd issued numerous bogus traffic citations. The success of a harassment lawsuit against the city of Lafayette and the state of Louisiana spawned an overnight avalanche of daiquiri shops throughout the state. In the decades to follow, my brainchild became a worldwide phenomenon. The Daiquiri Factory’s sealed container, as presented in court (masking tape over the lid’s straw slot), was ruled to be in compliance with the open container ordinance, setting a legal precedent in Louisiana that continues today. Branding every frozen drink as a daiquiri regardless of content was a first and redefined “daiquiri” in the American lexicon to mean “any alcoholic drink served frozen.”

Musings

Summer in the picturesque rolling piney hills of Ruston delivered a satisfying state of contentment for life’s simple pleasures. Nature’s glorious encroachments shaded much of the city in green and encouraged a cheerfully vibrant love-of-life state of mind. Lying in the coolness of a field of clover with the sun’s warmth on my face was a tranquilizing reprieve from life’s challenges that could put the most troubled soul at peace. These lazy dog days of summer and cool easy-spirited nights made up for many of the things Ruston couldn’t offer, and highlighted its unadulterated small-town charm and feeling of community that larger university cities had long ago lost.

We weren’t only selling daiquiris; we were selling an exciting new idea that redefined the cocktail experience. The drinks struck a pure pleasure center that transcended into a tropical vacation state of mind. As I had suspected from the beginning, the vast majority didn’t know what a true daiquiri was. My branding ploy went unquestioned, and whether they were daiquiris or not didn't matter. Our fifteen flavors were the general public’s first exposure to anything called a daiquiri, so that became their definition. Psychologically, everyone wanted paradise, and other than the few who could afford to jump on a plane and fly to some exotic destination, the Daiquiri Factory was as good as it could get. At least they could sip on a tropical cocktail and taste paradise. Seeking paradise is a quest that lives in all of us, regardless of how it’s defined, even if it comes in a white styrofoam cup delivered through a drive-thru window.

For me, Wil-Mart’s frozen drink bar was the stuff of dreams. A once-in-a-lifetime lightning bolt opportunity flashed through my mind, and in that crystal moment of clarity, marketing frozen cocktails became my life’s obsession. I committed to pouring every ounce of my creative spirit into developing my vision of a bar specializing in frozen cocktails and began brainstorming ways to improve what was in front of me.

Marketing courses at Louisiana Tech examined the psychology used in branding strategies. An ice cream franchise case study presented a business model similar to my vision of a frozen drink business. The study explained how an array of flavors influenced consumer perceptions and enhanced brand image. Although ice cream franchises offer many flavors, most of their profits are in two flavors, chocolate and vanilla. Discontinuing the other flavors would result in a total collapse of the brand. A thought-provoking question posed in the study was “Why would vanilla ice cream customers drive past multiple retailers that offer vanilla and insist on patronizing a store because of its larger flavor variety, only to purchase vanilla?” The ice cream store case study would greatly influence my business model. To establish a solid marketable image, I believed starting with fewer than fifteen flavor offerings would be a huge mistake.

New concepts are typically nothing more than improvements to old ideas. Although inspired by Wil-Mart, the Daiquiri Factory was not a progression of anything prior. It was an original concept born of my imagination that had materialized before a mystified public. Behind the snow cone stand fa�ade was a highly mechanized operation churning out world-class frozen cocktails that rivaled the libations of the city’s most praised and celebrated bartenders. The effortless ease of a quick complimentary sample followed by unprecedented lightning-fast service made a mockery of countless grimacing lip-biting bartenders agonizing over bar blenders. Frozen cocktails had gone from black and white to glorious technicolor overnight and even had a new name: Daiquiris!

Dark sunglasses and maxed-out air conditioners with every vent adjusted for a direct face blast were the only defenses against the sweltering hot subtropical sun. Girls in swimsuit tops and bare-chested guys stared back at us, waving money through windows rolled down just enough to pass a cup through. Doors stayed closed to keep in the cold, and the change that fell onto the driveway went ignored. It was perfect daiquiri weather. Birds had dropped out of the windless fiery sky to seek refuge in the cool shade of live oaks, and business was on pace for another record-breaking month.

Text prepared by:

• Bruce R. Magee

Source

Ervin, David. A Frozen Solution: How the First Drive-Thru Daiquiri Bar Beat Lafayette and Louisiana and Made History. © David Ervin. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

L’Anthologie  Louisianaise