The term "swizzle stick" may conjure up images of the crude-looking plastic drink stirrers you find in "Mad Men"-era cocktails or fruity tiki bar concoctions — but the original swizzle stick is something else entirely. It's a wooden Caribbean bar tool with a long history. The traditional swizzle stick also known as the bois lélé comes from a tree called the Quararibea turbinata. (It's also colloquially known as the swizzlestick tre.) After you strip the bark off the tree's thin straight branches that end in small spokes the branches are perfect for stirring drinks. When you twirl the ends of the branch between your palms they act a bit like hand blenders aerating and stirring the ingredients in a cocktail and creating a foamy head.
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 The Educated Barfly | 2021-10-13 13:04:26 |  23,781 Views |
How to stir without a stirring stick
The original swizzle stick has a history dating back over 400 years starting with a non-alcoholic beverage called the switchel that’s making a comeback. The drink — made from water vinegar ginger and molasses — originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century and the Quararibea turbinata swizzle stick was used to stir it. At some point rum came into the picture and the resulting drink eventually became known as a swizzle — and the stick used to stir it became known as a swizzle stick.
The traditional swizzle stick is very different from what most people would think of when they hear the term and the reason for that confusion is an inventor named Jay Sindler. Sindler designed the modern swizzle stick in 1934 after he was having trouble pulling an olive out of his martini.
In Sindler’s patent he promised that his invention—a small wooden spear with a space to advertise the name of the bar or restaurant—would put an end forever to “the rude antics people accustomed to polite social customs” of trying to get an olive out of a glass (via Punch ). By the 1950s the heyday of the plastic stirrer (also known as a drink stirrer) the new version with its wild colors and designs had replaced the original Caribbean stirrer.
