Wow, people slamming the pink foo foo drinks, and calling them "new?" - please, the Mai Tai is pink, and it's been around for over half a century. Tiki Bars have been around for more than 3/4 of a century and they've been serving up fruity, sweet drinks all along.
So, fruity, foo foo drinks aren't anything close to being new. There are new ones, of course, to keep up with new trends and wants - they come in and out of fashion. For example, I haven't seen a Sex-on-the-Beach ordered in ages. Died out sometime in the 90s, at the same time the Cosmopolitan rose up and dominated during the late 90s and most of this decade. But it too is losing its popularity now to other drinks.
One thing that seems to put the proverbial panties in a bunch for traditional martini drinkers, is the use of the word "martini."
Well, the cosmo is to blame. Cheryl Cook, who is credited with creating the cosmo in South Beach, said, " What overwhelmed me was the number of people who ordered Martinis just to be seen with a Martini glass in their hand. It was on this realization that gave me the idea to create a drink that everyone could palate and was visually stunning in that classic glass. This is what the Cosmo was based on."
Well, this idea of using the martini glass (instead of other highball glasses or hurricane glasses or, at that time, outdated tiki-cups and coconut shells), spread. And the Martini craze was born. Which is really nothing more than a cocktail craze, but the birth of martini bars has only furthered the relatively new and extended use of the word "martini" to drinks that are really just cocktails.
So, for all those traditional martini drinkers (many of whom disagree about the use or non-use of olive juice in a true martini - so they can't even agree there), you can blame Cheryl Cook and her cosmopolitan for purposely creating a cocktail for a martini glass, that wasn't a martini -although, I think the Manhattan had already done that.
Personally, I'm not huge on fruity drinks, tiki bar polynesian included, but my wife enjoys drinks to be more refreshing than harsh like straight up type of drinks. She liked my mint julep this year, and the mojito that followed, but admitted that those types of drinks are too sweet for multiple drinks. But my grapefruit based drink, with its balance of acidic citrus, tart cranberry and sweet triple sec, mixed with vodka, she found extremely refreshing and very drinkable with regards to multiple servings - which works to my advantage later on that night
Sex-on-the-beach was probably the most overblown drink in its heyday. A sort of screwdriver wapatula. When I was in to that crap, I don't know if I threw up later that night from too much booze, or too much sugar.
