You won’t recognize the name or his face, but Harry Yee was responsible for serving up millions of glasses of liquid aloha to Waikiki tourists and created some of the most popular tropical cocktails of the 20th century.
Now 98 years old, the former Hilton Hawaiian Village restaurant and banquet bartender was among the best at keeping tourists of legal drinking age well lubricated while on vacation. Some of his drinks continue to be served in bars and restaurants today.
One in particular, the Blue Hawaii, has remained consistently popular since he invented it in the 1950s. It even earned Yee a spot among celebrities, politicians and musicians on an 80-foot History Wall the resort unveiled last month.
Born in Honolulu, Yee worked as a bartender at Trader Vic’s on Ward Avenue before the hotel formerly known as Henry J. Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village came calling.
“They asked me to come over,” he said. “I was hired as head bartender in ’49 or ’50. I trained all the bartenders who came through.”
Along with training new hires, by the mid-’50s Yee was also tasked with managing the hotel’s cocktail program. It was around this time he introduced the use of paper umbrellas and orchids as garnishes for drinks, adding another dimension to the variety of vessels used to serve customers.
“I had a lot of different type of mugs and glass in different shape, color and size,” he explained. “In those days there were no blue drinks.”
That changed in 1957 when a sales rep stopped by with a bottle of Bols blue curacao liqueur. While curacao has an orange flavor to it, the bright blue hue of this newly introduced product was designed to make heads turn.
“He said, ‘Harry, do something with this,’ because there was no blue curacao around town then,” Yee said. “It didn’t take long.”
Yee’s original Blue Hawaii recipe calls for 3/4 ounce of vodka, 3/4 ounce light Puerto Rican rum, 1/2 ounce Bols blue curacao, an ounce of sweet-and-sour mix and 3 ounces of fresh pineapple juice. The ingredients are poured over ice and stirred in a clear hurricane glass — and as legend has it, Yee would hold up each drink he made to make sure the color looked just like the Pacific Ocean outside the hotel.
“It became a hit” relatively quickly, he said. When tourists would see waitresses pass by with a tray of neon blue drinks, most immediately asked for one themselves.
“In the beginning it was the look,” said Yee, “and then later on it was the taste. I didn’t expect it to become that popular. I’m kind of surprised about that.”
The Blue Hawaii isn’t his only creation from that era that continues to be regularly served in Waikiki. Yee also invented the Tropical Itch, introducing the world to the joy of drinks stirred with back scratchers. Cocktails like the Diamond Head, Hawaiian Eye and Hukilau might not be as widely known these days, but thanks to the proliferation of tiki cocktail culture on the Internet, more people are rediscovering Yee’s tasty concoctions from decades past.
Just don’t sacrifice quality or authenticity — Yee said details like using the right rum, sticking with the Bols brand of blue curacao and not cutting vodka out of the recipe are what make the Blue Hawaii such a great drink.
And after tasting my fair share of these cocktails over the last few weeks, I’d take that advice a step further and suggest having your Blue Hawaii made with the most top-shelf liquor you can afford (even if it means choosing rum from outside Puerto Rico). I’d also look for a bartender who offers fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, house-made sweet and sour, and is willing to take direction and build the drink in your glass instead of shaking or blending it (check out my blog for more on why this matters).
People who talk trash about the Blue Hawaii have probably always had them made with cheap well liquor, canned pineapple juice and a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup mixed with artificial flavors. But if you combine Yee’s classic recipe with today’s focus on fresh ingredients and quality liquor, the cocktail blossoms into a beautiful alcoholic postcard from paradise.
Jason Genegabus has written about Honolulu bars since 2001. Contact him at jason@staradvertiser.com with suggestions of places to visit and drinks to try; read his blog at inthemix.staradvertiserblogs.com.
