June, 2015 - Idina Menzel -The Original Trader Vic's Mai Tai

Idina Menzel

Idina Kim Menzel (born Idina Kim Mentzel May 30, 1971 in Syosset, Long Island) is an American actress and singer. She rose to prominence when she originated the role of Maureen Johnson in the Broadway musical Rent, a role which she reprised for the 2005 feature film adaptation of the musical. She received a Tony Award nomination in 1996 for her performance in Rent. In 2004, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for originating the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked. Menzel made her return to Broadway in the 2014 original musical If/Then, which earned her a nomination for the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She was then honored with the Breakthrough Artist award at the 2014 Billboard Women in Music awards ceremony.

 Menzel is also known for her recurring role of Shelby Corcoran on the Fox musical comedydrama TV series Glee. This role led to a revival in Menzel's career as her name gained more recognition, leading to a two-year tour and more acting roles. These included the 2007 Disney film Enchanted which she played the role of Nancy and as the voice of Queen Elsa in Frozen. Menzel performed at the 1998 Lilith Fair summer concert festival and continues to write and perform original music. Holiday Wishes (2014), her first album in six years, reached number 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Menzel is the only competitive Tony Award-winning actress to ever reach the top 10. Holiday Wishes also marked the first that a woman had three different albums (the cast recording to Frozen and If/Then) peak within the top 20 within 10 months of the release date.

 She grew up in Syosset, the daughter of Helene, a therapist, and Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman. Menzel's family is Jewish, and her grandparents emigrated from Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. When Menzel was 15 years old, her parents divorced and she began working as a wedding and bar mitzvah singer, a job which she continued throughout her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Menzel, however, did not celebrate a bat mitzvah after she quit Hebrew school.

 In 2010, Menzel founded the A Broader Way Foundation with then-husband Taye Diggs as a means of supporting young people in the arts. In Summer 2011, Camp Broader Way welcomed young girls from under-served metro New York communities to a 10-day performing arts camp, run by Menzel and a team of acclaimed professional Broadway artists including Taye Diggs. During this camp the girls collaborated with Broadway artists to write an original musical that was performed at a theatre in New York. Menzel has long-championed LGBT rights by partnering with organizations like The Trevor Project, the Give A Damn Campaign, and the NOH8 Campaign, posing for one of their trademark duct-taped silence photos.

The Drink:

The Original Trader Vic's Mai Tai

2 oz rum
2 tablespoons lime juice
½ oz orange curacao
¼ oz simple syrup
½ oz orgeat syrup
Shake vigorously. Add a sprig of fresh mint
and spent lime shell for garnish

Drinkability: 4
Drunkability: 3
Accessibility: 1.5
Taxic Diversity: 4
Priority for Conservation: 5*

Comments:  FR couldn't find orgeat so she substituted sugar free almond syrup, this was not a good substitution.  PoC * = AZ as outlier, finding it undrinkable with the sugar-free syrup - better to omit

From "Women From Long Island" hosted by Fluffy Ruffle