June Cocktail of the Month: The Blue Tail Fly

If the recent weather is any indication, summer is just around the corner. And while summer officially begins June 20^th, we here at Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge know that Milwaukee welcomes any sign of warmer weather with open arms. So why wait three more weeks? Let’s celebrate summer’s arrival early by bringing back the Cocktail of the Month!

For those of you who don’t remember how our Cocktail of the Month special works, every month we’ll highlight a different classic Bryant’s drink and offer it to you for the special price of $6 during our Old Fashioned Cocktail Hour (Sunday through Thursday 5pm-8pm). So, in addition to the $5 Old Fashioneds and Depression Era Drinks, you’ll have one more discounted cocktail to choose from. This month, we bring you the Blue Tail Fly.

The Blue Tail Fly is one of our four dozen ice cream drinks, and, we think, one of the oldest here at Bryant’s. Invented by the original owner, Bryant Sharp himself, this cocktail’s primary ingredient is Blue Curacao, which gives this drink both its light blue color and a flavor reminiscent of Valencia oranges. Once as locally famous as some of the other ice dream drinks Bryant invented like the Pink Squirrel and the Banshee (both of which, along with the Blue Tail Fly, can still be found on the menus of historic Wisconsin supper clubs), its popularity undeservedly and inexplicably waned over the years. This month seems like a perfectly appropriate time to correct that.

So why is it called the Blue Tail Fly, you ask? Much like many other ice cream drinks, such as the Grasshopper and the Pink Squirrel, its name was most likely inspired by its color. But it was quite possibly named after a very old and enduring song as well. “Blue Tail Fly” (you might know it better as the “Jimmy Crack Corn” song) was popular with traveling minstrel shows in the 1840s, and was a mainstay with an 1860s minstrel troupe named, of all things, Bryant’s Minstrels (Coincidence? We think so.). But after World War II, the song regained popularity in a more whitewashed and kid-friendly version, especially with a 1947 recording by Burl Ives and The Andrews Sisters. Although nowadays we primarily associate the tune with child sing-alongs, the 1940s and 1950s saw this song recorded numerous times by the likes of Leadbelly, Kate Smith, Pete Seeger, and Lawrence Welk. It’s as if the drink had its own soundtrack. Given how popular it was, Bryant might have found inspiration in the song while naming his new creation.

However, unlike the contemporary iterations of the song, Bryant’s Blue Tail Fly is neither watered down nor child appropriate. It’s a delicious and refreshing cocktail, the perfect complement to a hot summer day or a fitting dessert to a backyard cookout.

Stop in between 5pm and 8pm Sunday through Thursday and get a Blue Tail Fly for just $6 all month long.