Who Was Harvey Wallbanger?
Who was Harvey Wallbanger? Everyone remembers Arnold Palmer was a golfer. Harvey Wallbanger, not so much.
This strange and slightly aggressive sounding name adorned one of the most popular cocktails of the 1970s, but the source of the moniker has faded from popular memory over the decades. In this article we’ll trace back the truth of the question you forgot to ask.
Anyone with the surname ‘Wallbanger’ sounds like someone you don’t want to visit your bar or party. So how did this cocktail become all the rage in the era of big collars and bell bottoms? The background follows the pattern of a lot of mixology origin stories, with two different timelines; the colorful entertaining legend and the timeline of what happened. Let’s start with the legend.
In the early 1950s, there (supposedly) was a watering hole known as the Blackwatch Bar on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. This establishment was presided over by veteran bartender Donato Antone, better known as “Duke.” Apparently, Duke had a knack for creating drinks that would soon go on to become very famous. He later ran a bartending academy called Antone’s School of Mixology and claimed to have invented cocktail staples including the White Russian, the Kamikaze, and the Rusty Nail.
The story goes that one of the regulars at the Blackwatch was Tom Harvey, a dedicated surfer from Manhattan Beach. While he displayed grace and balance shredding his board over the waves of the Pacific, he subsequently celebrated his oceanic athleticism by heavily enjoying Duke’s drinks. This overindulgence led Harvey to lose his critical senses of direction and spatial awareness and go around walking into walls as the nights progressed.
Talented wave rider Tom Harvey earned a destructive reputation for getting blitzed at Blackwatch and careening around the bar like a bull in a China shop. His favorite drink was a variation on the traditional screwdriver invented by Duke, so the bright orange cocktail was christened after the man, and the Harvey Wallbanger was born.
A California surfer dude who loved getting sozzled and careening into the walls of a Sunset Strip dive sounds almost cartoonish. In the 1970s, a marketing campaign for the drink appeared, featuring cartoons of Harvey Wallbanger in various settings across different promotional items. The campaign was sponsored by Galliano Liqueur, makers of the important third ingredient in the recipe for a Harvey Wallbanger following vodka and orange juice. More on them later.
The cartoon Harvey Wallbanger doesn’t fit the look of a fit and tanned California surfer. It’s closer to the image of a guy who has spent more time at the bar than the beach, to his detriment. The character’s physique is the opposite of lean and muscular. His wisps of hair are frazzled and his eyes show an expression of shocked confusion, like he’s battling a frightening hangover, feeling his injuries from wall-banging, questioning his intoxicated behavior at the Blackwatch, or all of the above. He has wrinkled bags under his eyes. His feet are outrageously large, almost as big as his body, with white painted toenails blaring out of mammoth tan sandals. He usually wears a baggy tank top with wide blue and purple horizontal stripes and matching shorts.
The overall image may be one of the ugliest, most unattractive cartoons of all time (no offense, Harvey). Harvey Wallbanger makes Joe Camel look like Brad Pitt. Why would anyone want to drink anything associated with this goon? He looks bewildered and lost in every ad but he has a catchphrase.
“Harvey Wallbanger is the name. And I can be made!”
The promos all include the basic recipe for quick reference. The only difference between a standard screwdriver cocktail and a Harvey Wallbanger is the addition of Galliano liqueur. Our research into the lineage of Harvey Wallbanger reveals Galliano was the true orchestrator of his creation.
Duke Antone didn’t even reside in Hollywood during the 1950s; he actually lived in Hartford, Connecticut. In the following decade, he befriended George Bednar, the marketing director of McKesson Imports, the American distributor of, you guessed it, Galliano liqueur. In 1969, commercial artist Bill Young was commissioned to create the befuddled image of Harvey Wallbanger for the Galliano marketing campaign. Somehow it all worked; the drink became a national trend, and Galliano was soon sending over half-a-million cases every year from Italy to the U.S.
Bill Young was a talented designer and smart guy. His advertising deal with McKesson included the very wise provision that Young would earn a percentage on every case of Galliano imported to the States. He was, therefore, motivated to make extra efforts in spreading the Harvey Wallbanger image far and wide. His son, Will Young, later recalled how his father would make trips to college spring break destinations to pass out Wallbanger t-shirts and merchandise and host Wallbanger branded events. He also had the bright idea to anoint qualified students as Harvey Wallbanger Ambassadors, tasked with spreading the simple recipe across campus.
When Bill Young passed away in 2016, Will told the Rochester newspaper Democrat & Chronicle:
“I don’t remember much (from those days), but I remember when all of a sudden my dad went from driving a Volkswagen to a BMW. Our whole world changed with the Harvey Wallbanger. That was his first knock-it-out-of-the-park moment.”
Mixology historian David Wondrich theorizes, “With Young’s Harvey to blaze the way, Antone’s simple, even dopey, drink would go on to be the first drink created by a consultant to actually take the nation by storm.” You know how the saying goes. “Never let the truth get in the way of a clever marketing campaign.” Surf’s up!
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