It’s a Friday, but the creative team at Sterling Cooper is going to work the weekend because Bacardi rum executives are arriving Tuesday to see if “Daiquiri Beach,” a nascent idea for a Bacardi ad campaign, “has legs.” Ken Cosgrove, the account man who handles Bacardi, tells the team Don Draper wants to see copy on Monday morning and artwork by Monday night. Their assignment is to develop five vacation scenarios around the Daiquiri Beach theme. It means Peggy Olson, Paul Kinsey, and Smitty Smith, a relatively new addition to the team hired by Don for his acumen about the youth market, will have to sacrifice their weekend plans.
After Peggy leaves the room where they are brainstorming ideas for Bacardi, Paul calls an old college friend and drug dealer, the unctuous preppy Jeffrey Graves. Peggy returns to a room filled with pot smoke. Paul explains he needs it for inspiration and, after all, “It’s Saturday.” When Jeffrey asks Peggy her name, she replies, “I’m Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some marijuana.”
When her older secretary, Olive Healy, expresses concern about what she’s “been doing in there,” we see a Peggy Olson who has completely come into her own.
“Don’t worry about me,” Peggy tells Olive. “I am going to get to do everything you want for me.”
While Smitty and Paul engage in post-marijuana banter, Peggy is still turning ideas for Bacardi and Daiquiri Beach over in her head. But it is Paul, we think, who actually hits on the best idea for Bacardi, and he does so before Jeffrey arrives with the joints. As he sips Bacardi and Coke and eats an orange, he asks Peggy to get a blender. “Maybe,” he says, “we can turn this into a frappé.”
The idea may have sounded original to Peggy, Paul, and Smitty, but a recipe for a Bacardi frappé, also called a Daiquiri, appeared in a Bacardi ad as early as August 17, 1953, a decade before the Sterling Cooper creative team’s weekend brainstorming session. The two-page spread featured “Favorite Rum Recipes from Six Yachtsmen,” including one Francisco Fullana of San Juan, Puerto Rico, whose recipe for a frozen Daiquiri calls for blending crushed ice, lime juice, sugar, and Bacardi in a blender and whirling until “thoroughly frappéd.” We adapted it for one of two rum frappé recipes that follow. The second variation comes from a ten-page booklet published by Bacardi in the early 1960s called “Be A Drink Expert,” and the formula is simpler: it calls for just Bacardi and frozen lemonade or limeade.
When the public learned that President Kennedy’s favorite cocktail was a Daiquiri, it became one of the most popular drinks of the era. Call it what you will, a Daiquiri or a Frappé—either way, here’s to Peggy getting everything Olive wants for her and more, and to Paul for his not-so-original inspiration! At least he was trying.
A PAGE FROM A BACARDI PAMPHLET TITLED “BE A DRINK EXPERT,” PUBLISHED IN THE EARLY 1960S
ADAPTED FROM FRANCISCO FULLONO, BACARDI ADVERTISEMENT (AUGUST 1953)
1 cup finely crushed ice
Juice of half a lime (1⁄2 ounce)
1 teaspoon sugar
11⁄2 ounces light Bacardi rum
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until thoroughly frappéd.
YIELD: 1 DRINK
COURTESY OF BACARDI RUM, “BE A DRINK EXPERT” BOOKLET, CIRCA EARLY 1960S
2 teaspoons frozen limeade or lemonade
concentrate
11⁄2 ounces Bacardi rum
YIELD: 1 DRINK