Fred Waring wherever you are I’d like to kiss you right in the pucker. Because you my wise friend brought us a summertime lifesaver: The Bar Blender!

It’s capable of pulverizing an ordinary “on the rocks” cocktail into a frosty, smooth summertime thirst quencher. If it weren’t for you the famed Tiki drinks of the 1930s wouldn’t exist. Daiquiris would remain shaken or stirred. Margarita would just be an island in the Caribbean.

Thanks to you, plain ole schmucks like me can transform ice, alcohol and fruit into a pleasurably slushy treat. We can kick back 3 or 4 potent fruity concoctions and never know what hit us.

Now I know you did not exactly invent this machine. That honor goes to another Fred named Osius (you know as in Osterizer). But it’s you Mr. Waring who saw its potential. It’s you who put your wallet where your pucker was and fronted early production and design of this whirling little beauty.

Maybe it wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to fire that other Fred and have your team put his machine through some redesigns. But it was those redesigns that finally made this baby sing.

Sup’s! gettin’ his girl on today! You heard me. I’m in search of that inner-feminine that makes all men real men. Afterall I just spent a weekend with about 75 lovely ladies at CampBlogaway! I almost felt handsome...

So in honor of these powerful women bloggers I am going to slip into something pink and pretty and a little ticklish. If I had a pink boa, I’d wear it for inspiration.

That’s ‘cuz the girls at LoveFeast Table invited me to invent a cocktail to help get them through the Long Hot Summer (does it get hot in Minnesota??)

Now I know these girls. They have regular posts called Fancy Fridays. These include nothing but photos of pretty, flouncy, girly things. So I am going girly with this cocktail. Extremely girly.

Once I had my assignment I began to search out some illumination for my libation. Perhaps some pretty pink inspiration. But the truth is there is not much pink in my house. I have an old polo shirt that’s pink… but girly it ain’t.

Cocktail guru David Wondrich calls the Zombie 'the mother of all freak drinks'. Which makes me wonder if I even want to attempt this cocktail. But if freaky can mean sexy and bad can mean good and phat can mean pretty hot and tempting. Then the phrase 'the mother of all freak drinks' can mean just about anything. So start mixing 'cuz here I go...

You probably associate the Zombie with the tiki bars of 1950s. But it actually made its appearance well before that. In fact it is said to be the invention of Earnest Raymond Beaumont Gantt and Cora Irene Sund, better known on these pages as Don the Beachcomber and Sunny Sund, owners of the iconic old Hollywood restaurant Don the Beachcomber. I told their whole story already when I introduced you to Rumaki. CLICK here for all the details.

David Wondrich credits the inspiration for this cocktail 'as liquid CPR for some poor SOB experiencing death by hangover'. But I have also read that Don first whipped one up for a friend who was traveling cross-country by airplane and needed some liquid courage. In any case, the Zombie has stumbled arms first into the consciousness of the American cocktail culture. A true party drink. By the time tiki culture went rogue, the Zombie, with all its nefarious 'no-more-than-two-to-a-customer charms' became the ultimate symbol of alcoholic bravado.