They don’t call it the Magic Kingdom for nothing, and today we’ll be mixing the Hard Dole Whip to commemorate the opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955. It was the first of the many Disney amusement parks that now exist, and it really wasn’t up to speed at first. Walt didn’t want alcohol on the premises, you see, and it took quite a while for the Forces of Good to prevail. It wasn’t until 2019 that the original Disneyland in Anaheim served drinks to the general public.
Walt Disney was ambitious, and in the early 1950s he began to design a huge amusement park near Los Angeles. Disney bought a large tract of land in Anaheim when it was still a farming community and began building in 1954. They opened the following year but without a single bar on site.
Prohibition at Disneyland
Walt explained his no-booze mandate in an interview with The Saturday Evening Post, saying, “No liquor, no beer, nothing. Because that brings in a rowdy element. That brings people that we don’t want and I feel like they don’t need it.”
Well….the spinning teacup ride may be pretty vomit inducing on its own, but that’s pretty rich coming from a guy who liked a drink to wind down at the end of the day. Walt favored a Scotch Mist, which is basically just Scotch Whisky over crushed ice.
The situation was dire, but two years later he relented. The company wanted to sell VIP-type memberships to Disneyland for tens of thousands of dollars and realized it wouldn’t work if the high rollers couldn’t get a drink. So they opened Club 33, a very discrete bar for corporate executives and those special members, right next to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
It wasn’t until 2019 that Disneyland realized they should sell drinks to the other 99.99% of the world. They opened a Start Wars-themed bar named Oga’s Cantina over in the Star Wars section of the park. Now the Blue Bayou restaurant inside the park also has drinks on it’s menu, but those two are all you’ll find inside. These are not memorable bars, largely serving brightly colored, highly sugared drinks to tourists that don’t usually drink. Not quite what our discerning readers seek.
Other Disney properties have better drinking options. The nearby Disney California Adventure has Carthay Circle Lounge and Club 1901, where you can get real cocktails. Other Disney properties spread around the world provide better opportunities than the original Disneyland itself.
Hard Dole Whip
Dole whip is a soft serve frozen dessert with a cult following among Disney park goers. The Dole Food Company developed it in 1964, specifically to serve at Disney parks. For some reason it took them ten years from when they took over as the sponsor of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. Unfortunately, though, the Enchanted Tiki Room has never been a tiki bar.
Dole whip was a huge hit. It wasn’t long, of course, until people realized that adding rum to this pineapple wonderment improved matters significantly. Disney eventually caught on.
You can’t get a Dole Whip with rum, or what we’ll refer to as a Hard Dole Whip, inside Disneyland. But you can nearby at the Disneyland Hotel, and there are a few options on the east coast. Walt Disney World has several options at last report, including Animal Kingdom’s Tamu Tamu refreshments and Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto in the Disney Polynesian Village Resort.
Naturally, the Hard Dole Whip is Drink of the Day for Disneyland’s opening. And while you can’t quite make the same thing at home without a soft serve machine, the blender version is plenty slushy and just what’s needed. It’s also a great choice if a Frozen Mojito or a Papa Doble wasn’t enough to cool you off on a hot summer day.
Hard Dole Whip
Equipment
- Blender or food processor
Ingredients
- 16 oz Frozen pineapple chunks
- ⅓ cup Coconut milk
- 3 tb Sugar
- 1 tsp Fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp Fresh lime juice
- ½ Banana
- 2 oz Rum We leave it to our readers to choose between a light and dark rum. Either is good.
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to your trusty blender.
- Blend until smooth.
- Pour into tall glass.
- Drink.
