The zombie was the brainchild of the talented bartender Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, nicknamed Donn Beach. He and his business-savvy wife, Cora Irene Sund, a former schoolteacher turned cocktail waitress, opened Don the Beachcomber in 1937 in Hollywood, California. Their timing was flawless. The country was a few short years past Prohibition, and many of the Hollywood stars had spent that dry time in the playground of Havana, Cuba, where rum drinks were the order of the day. The famous Trader Vic, Victor Bergeron, was inspired by the success of the Beachcomber to reinvent Hinky Dinks, his saloon in Oakland, California, as Trader Vic’s. Tiki was definitely the order of the day.
