Bubba Cordaro has every right to be frustrated. These last few years, he has watched as the frozen eggnog daiquiri introduced to Shreveport by his late brother, Mike, has gone from a Tony’s Beverages exclusive to something that can be purchased at just about any liquor store in Shreveport. Heck, you can even get them in Bossier City. But Bubba doesn’t seem angry. He seems concerned.
“If you mass produce anything, you jeopardize the quality of your product,” he told me during a recent visit. “If you want an eggnog daiquiri with high integrity, you don’t cut the quality of ingredients that go in there.”
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As I sat on the couch in Bubba’s office, it occurred to me that we weren’t just talking about eggnog daiquiris, here. Though I doubt that Bubba and I hold many overlapping political views, there we were, commiserating over what Capitalism does when it’s functioning as designed.
Back in 2002, “Big Mike” Cordaro—longtime manager of the liquor store that his father, Tony, opened in 1964—proposed the eggnog daiquiri as a way to potentially boost frozen drink sales during the fall and winter months. Mike wanted to create something that customers would crave in cold weather, as they craved frozen margaritas and vodka freezes in warm weather.
“At first, people were apprehensive, but it took off,” Bubba said. “And it got to where they’d have to call in extra cashiers, including me, on the weekends. The rest is history.”
In 2002, and for more than a decade to follow, if you wanted a frozen eggnog daiquiri, you had to go to the little neighborhood store in South Highlands. You had to say ‘hey’ to Big Mike. Maybe you asked him about the next big race at Louisiana Downs. Maybe you talked a little high school football.
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“Then, we were the only ones to have it,” Bubba said. “Now, you see them everywhere.”
The thing isn’t that dozens of competing businesses, including several large chains, have begun selling their own versions of the frozen eggnog daiquiri. The thing is that many of those drinks are made using powdered mixes and rotgut boozes in a machine that likely hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.
The most animated that Bubba got during our visit was when I asked him about one of the secret ingredients in Tony’s eggnog daiquiris: cleanliness.
“To sell eggnog daiquiris, you’d better be prepared to clean your machines almost daily,” he said. “Because they can go bad quick, so you have to keep an eggnog daiquiri machine extremely clean.”
I’m not saying it’s impossible that any chain liquor store employee, anywhere, has ever looked at a frozen daiquiri machine and said “When was the last time we gave that machine a good, thorough cleaning?” I’m just saying that it is a factor worthy of consideration, especially when dairy products are involved. During eggnog daiquiri season, two Tony’s employees earn extra money by deep-cleaning the machines on a regular basis.
For me, the eggnog daiquiri perfectly embodies the dysfunctional charm of Shreveport. It is a 2,000-calorie depth charge bearing a skull-numbing payload of rum. Drinking a large eggnog daiquiri from Tony’s is, scientifically speaking, akin to eating a quart of vanilla soft serve and following it immediately with six shots of Sailor Jerry.
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And, yet, generations of Shreveporters have not only normalized this practice, we have tied it to the most sacrosanct religious holiday of the Christian faith. Sometime in mid-November, it becomes perfectly acceptable to walk into a family gathering bearing a half gallon of eggnog daiquiri containing enough rum to sedate a Clydesdale. As Tony Taglavore wrote in The Forum News in 2017 (and this may be the most metal sentence ever published by The Forum): “an eggnog daiquiri from Tony’s is as traditional as a Christmas tree.”
To me, the eggnog daiquiri says: “Yes, grandma, I am drunk. But I’m not drunk because I have a drinking problem, I’m drunk because I’m so happy that Jesus was born.” The drink’s association with the holiday excuses the naked irresponsibility of its existence. Personally, I think that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who once turned water into wine so that the party wouldn’t stop, would approve.
Back in Bubba’s office, I am having no luck getting him to discuss the ingredients that go into their eggnog daiquiris. I ask Bubba whether, in his opinion, any of the copycat eggnog daiquiris match the taste of the original. To my surprise, he said yes.
“There’s a place in Natchitoches that sells a ton of good-tasting eggnog daiquiris made with brandy that are somewhat similar to the ones that we sell,” he said. “I have to give them credit, because their recipe tastes good.”
Ultimately, I don’t believe Bubba resents other businesses getting into the eggnog daiquiri game. I think he just wishes that they’d put more effort into it. His brother, Mike, was proud of the way those eggnog daiquiris tasted. Bubba told me that he worries that out-of-towners who don’t know any better will stop in for a “famous” eggnog daiquiri at one of the chain places and have a negative experience.
Quality isn’t always easy to detect. Additives and phony flavorings can make truffle oil (which, in most cases, is a chemical compound designed in a laboratory) taste like fresh black summer truffles. But the difference between the eggnog daiquiris at Tony’s Beverages and those I’ve tasted at several regional chains is as obvious as the difference between a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and a box of Franzia. This Christmas, I hope that you’ll choose quality. Enjoy this story? Tip the author $5 to make future articles possible or become a subscriber by contributing $10 each month. Subscribe to the Stuffed & Busted e-newsletter and never miss a story. It’s free!
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