Sun and Shadows

Victor Bergeron

Sep 13

Athanasius Kircher’s many seminal works included the Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae ("The Great Art of Light and Shadow"), 1645. The Ars Magna was the first European publication describing the illumination and projection of images, a magical interplay of light and shadow. I’m toasting the storied scholar, and the modern mystery adventure he inspired, with a cocktail reminiscent of the light and the dark. It was created by another luminary, whose influence is limited to the great art of cocktail creators and historians. Victor Bergeron was an entrepreneur who opened his first bar in Oakland, California in 1934. With an eye to the times and trends, he noted an opportunity and tapped into the emerging fascination with “Polynesia”, appropriating that iconography for his bar and turning it into “Trader Vic’s”, one of the first and most famous tiki bars.

In Bergeron’s cocktail, the “shadow” is represented by a selection of dark rums and the “sun” shines through with bright, sweet pineapple. There are no side notes for the drink where it first appears in his Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide, 1972, so we will never know if these references are what lent the name or whether it has some other poetic reference, but it seems rather moot as you lose yourself in the light and shadow of this potently delicious tropical drink. Cheers!