Drink 32: The Pink Elephant

The Name: The Pink Elephant                                                                                

The Bar: The Headless Horseman (119 East 15th st., NYC)

The Story Behind The Name:

Let's address the pink elephant in the room: this drink name has absolutely nothing to do with the movie Fantasia.

I've mentioned before how I'm a toy salesman. It's a fun job, but like all jobs in a specific field, you tend to learn a lot about the more surprising unpleasantness of the business. As delightful as you think the world of toys might be, there are definitely some weird quirks to how toys are manufactured and advertised. And one of the weirdest and worst quirks is how everything tends to be categorized as a boy's toy, or a girl's toy.

If you've ever been in a toy store in your life, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Some toys, like dolls or tea sets are marketed exclusively towards girls, while action figures and toy cars are viewed exclusively as boy's toys. And if children identifying as one gender should show an interest in another toy, they are seen as an exception (girls who like trucks or guns getting labeled as tomboys, for example). It's a huge problem (and, of course, not one that only affects the toy business) and there are lots of articles about why this is problematic if you're not convinced (here's one!), but I can tell you that I've witnessed this practice being harmful firsthand. There have been multiple times I've seen parents talk their child out of a toy because "they shouldn't be playing with that." I've seen fathers ridicule their son because he wants a dollhouse. I've seen parents stop their daughters from looking at Legos because "there'll be more stuff for you at the Barbie section." The whole thing is icky.

And then there are the toys that are not typically associated with any gender, but which toy manufacturers desperately try to fit into one of these categories. There are pink YoYos, because obviously a girl cannot play with a blue or a green YoYo. That would be terrible. One of the products that I demonstrate is a drawing board, where you can draw things on a multi-colored board. The colors on this board are blue, green, red, and yellow. There have been a few times that I've lost a sale because it didn't come in "girl colors," and so the shopper didn't know if the girl they were buying it for would like it.

The girl's version comes in pink, purple, magenta, and superpink!

But, of course, it isn't THAT surprising that people think children have to play with toys based on their presented gender, since so many otherwise gender-neutral toys have been made in boy versions and girl versions. Don't believe me? Here are two versions of a doodle book.

Featuring doodles of things only boys like, like an octopus and a kite, and things only girls like, like microphones and ice cream. Both like dragons, but only girls like dragons with wings.

To be clear, this is a book that teaches kids how to draw. And not even how to draw well, but how to draw silly little doodles. There's no reason to bring gender into the discussion, and yet, somehow, they found a way.

But, by far the worst example of this trend has to do with a little game called Elefun. I never played it as a kid, but I do remember seeing commercials for it (you can watch one such commercial here). If you don't feel like watching a weird commercial from the 90's, Elefun is a game where a toy elephant shoots butterflies out of its trunk and all the players have to catch the butterflies in their nets. Whoever catches the most butterflies wins. It's like Hungry Hungry Hippos, but with nets and the horrifying implications that an elephant has hundreds of butterflies stuffed up their trunk somehow. It seems like a fun enough game for little kids (or an ele-fun enough game, har har har), with the added addition of having "pick up the mess your toy made" being the stated purpose of the game. As I never played Elefun, I had not thought of the game in years. Until I saw it on the shelves of Toys R Us. But there was a new version of Elefun accompanying it.

That's right. Belefun. Elefun for girls. Because this elephant is pink, you see. And has eyelashes.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Putting aside the fact that the gendering of toys is an out of control problem, I find the existence of Belefun most offensive because it simply makes no sense. No one, even those who most strictly adhere to the stereotypical boy/girl standards of toy classification, would think this is a game aimed at boys. The purpose is to catch butterflies. That's really all it is. And so if someone had a gun to my head and was making me classify this as a "boy's toy" or a "girl's toy," I would have guessed girl's toy every time. And yet, because Elefun is blue (and otherwise completely genderless), Hasbro felt the need to make a "girl's version." Belefun. The pink elephant. So that now even girls can catch butterflies being shot out of a plastic elephant's nose!!!

Finally.

The whole "pink is for girls, blue is for boys" thing is so awful, and I feel like Belefun truly epitomizes what is wrong with this. And I also feel like "The Pink Elephant" is a great name for a cocktail. Apparently a lot of people agree with me, because when I googled "Pink Elephant Cocktail," I got a lot of results. But I think this name fits the rules of the game as there doesn't appear to be a definitive Pink Elephant cocktail, as none of the results that I found were even remotely alike. There was one made with vodka, one made with gin, even one made with merlot. There was a particularly delicious-sounding one which was made with pineapple juice, absinthe, and fire, and was bafflingly not-at-all pink. Scariest of all, the very first search result was a recipe from Food Network personality and menace to society Sandra Lee. If you're not familiar with Sandra Lee, she is infamous for using store-bought ingredients in her "recipes." So her shopping list includes ingredients like "a whole store-bought apple pie." Her recipes are fascinating disasters, made more incredible when you remember that she has two shows on the once-credible Food Network and also is dating the governor of New York. If you're intrigued, watch pretty much any of her segments on youtube and you will be horrified, although her Kwanzaa cake is a great place to start, and is just as offensive as the Belefun game. I guess her recipe for a Pink Elephant cocktail sounded okay, though, if potentially way, way, way, way too sweet.

 

Ordering The Drink: My friend Aaron, who has joined me for this blog before, has just moved to New York City for the long term, and we went out for a drink to celebrate. Our meeting place of choice was a bar called The Headless Horseman, located near Union Square. 

Aaron does his best Vanna White impression at the bar's entrance arch.

 It has a great vibe with somewhat of an old-timey castle feel. There's lots of exposed brick and stone, with wooden floors and fire-lit lamps. It was all very cool. The cocktails were interesting and well-made, but they also have an extensive beer menu, so drink fans of all kinds should be happy. And the food was good too--Aaron and I split a snack called "crispy chickpeas" which were seriously addictive. So, good atmosphere, good drinks, good food--what else could you want? I certainly had high hopes as I got ready to order my Pink Elephant.

Our friendly and attentive waitress came by and asked if we wanted a second round. I made my order for a Pink Elephant, and she said she'd check with the bartender. We were at a table right next to the bar, and watched their conversation with great interest. After a moment, the bartender walked away and she turned to us.
"He's doing it!" she said, and gave us a thumbs up. We gave her a thumbs up back.

And then the drink arrived.

The Drink:

Vodka

Cranberry juice

Soda

Lots of ice

Lime garnish
Served in a giant jug. And I mean giant.

I told you I meant giant.

 Assessment of Drink: This jar was absolutely huge and 100% not meant for someone to drink out of. It's really what you would mix a huge thing of punch in. In fact, I'm not all that convinced that the bartender even made this drink for me. I think he might have just made a big batch of vodka cranberries at the start of his shift that he's been ladling out all night, and there happened to be only a little left, so when the waitress asked for a Pink Elephant, he just picked up the enormous glass bucket and went "here you go." It would certainly explain the vast amounts of ice that were present in this drink.

But, either way, this drink was a lot of fun. Aaron and I couldn't stop laughing. I've had a Vodka and Cranberry juice before, and it's good (the waitress didn't say it, but there might have been some sour mix in it too, because it tasted a little bit more sour than cranberry juice normally is--although not unpleasantly so) but something about this truly ridiculous drinking vessel made it really fun. I couldn't tell if I felt like an idiot or a powerful Norse god every time I took a drink.

I struggle to drink my Pink Elephant in the very dimly-lit bar.

The exaggerated size of the "glass" really made it something special. It's certainly one of the most memorable drinks I've had for this blog. This blog is all about finding unusual cocktails, and its presentation was certainly unusual. I could actually see this drink being a signature thing at a bar. The Pink Elephant challenge: order a pink elephant and if you finish the whole thing in five minutes it's half off! I'd take it.

Also, you couldn't really see it in the picture, but the Pink Elephant came with a lot of ice. Like, a LOT of ice. My guess is the bartender might have made a normal-sized drink and put it in the giant jug for fun, but that it looked completely puny in there and he didn't think he could serve it, so he just kept filling it with ice so that it looked like there was anything in there at all. Because a normal amount of cocktail would have looked like nothing in that huge thing. Ice was the only way to make this drink even remotely presentable. The consequence of this was that I basically had an endless drink. As I kept drinking, the ice kept melting, and so the amount of liquid in the container never actually went down, it just became more and more diluted. It was a struggle. But I continued to drink my cranberry-tinged water with much relish  as the night went on.

This was after I'd had most of the drink and it looks like I haven't even touched it. Although it really is slightly less red than when the drink was first placed before me.

Does It Live Up To The Name: Absolutely! I've already gone over some theories as to how this drink might have been created (that it was simply leftovers of a mass-produced cocktail, or that it was a normal drink with huge heaps of ice thrown in). I'm not entirely sure that the drink's presentation was not a bit of a "fuck you," directed at me. "You want an elephant drink? Here you go, drink out of this!" But, of course, it's possible that none of these theories are true and that the hefty glass vase my drink came in was entirely the bartender's design, and he excitedly poured it in thinking "This is perfect!" And if that's the case, then he was absolutely right. I completely bought that this drink would be called the Pink Elephant. Even with its simple ingredients, the presentation felt unique enough that the drink had a feel all its own. Was it pink? Yes. Was it elephantine? Hell yes! This thing was HUGE! While I do think there might have been a more elegant approach to making a Pink Elephant (the bar's regular cocktail menu was far more refined, and featured some sophisticated ingredients like tea-infused bourbon), this drink made me incredibly happy, and it showcased the kind of creativity this blog was made for. The Headless Horseman was a rousing success. I'm glad I finally made it there, and will surely be back should I ever be in the area.

 

The Headless Horseman is also the first bar I've visited since receiving a wonderful gift courtesy of my dear friends, the Quinns. Thanks to the Quinns, I now have a stack of customized What's That Drink business cards to help advertise the blog. My friends and loyal readers--let me know if you'd like some!

"Thanks for The Pink Elephant! - Miles"
And thanks for a great evening, Headless Horseman. See you soon!