The Green Thing
aka The Road's End Cooler

Recipes for Lake Havasu's infamous
Green Thing and Swamp Thing

            Several years ago an article in a Havasu publication caught my eye. In it they declared the "return of the Green Thing" to another Lake Havasu restaurant. With the article was a photograph of one their employees proudly holding up a T-shirt and proclaiming "return of the Green Thing". This seem to imply that this popular Havasu drink originated with them or had not been offered in Havasu recently. Not so. In another issue of the publication, it explained that the Green Thing was made popular at the Roads Inn. Not exactly an accurate statement.
            The restaurant they were referring to was the Road's End, not Road's Inn. Plus, the Green Thing was not only made popular at the Road's End, it was created there. (The Road's End Restaurant was located on the hill at Havasu Palms.)
            It happened in the early 1980's, after my sister, Lynn, and her husband, Steve Galloway, returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon. They'd discovered a delicious drink called the Canyon Cooler, which I will admit, gave them the basic idea for the Green Thing. Together, my dad, Walt Johnson, and Steve, experimented in the bar, and came up with the Road's End Cooler.
            When we closed the Road's End Restaurant, we brought our family's Green Thing, with us, and made it the Copper Mine Restaurant's house drink. Therefore, since it was already available in Havasu, it did not need to "return".
            But this isn't the first time one of our popular house drinks have caught the eye of other Havasu restaurants. The Green Thing's true name is the "Road's End Cooler". In the 1980's, one local restaurant featured the Road's End Cooler on their menu. This is the only restaurant I know of which actually credited the Road's End for its drink.
            Selling more than 9,000 Road's End Coolers each season, Road's End customers began to simply ask for the "Green Thing". Thus the drink earned its nickname. Later, one of the Havasu Palms tenants suggested adding a splash of dark rum to the drink. Hence, the "Swamp Thing" was born.
            After the Copper Mine Restaurant and Saloon opened in 1998, and was featuring both the popular Green Thing and Swamp Thing on their menu as house drinks, another well known Havasu restaurant began featuring the "return of the Swamp Thang".
            All in all, I suppose we should feel pretty flattered that our house drinks have become so coveted by other Havasu establishments. I know dad would have chuckled.
            Now that the Copper Mine Restaurant has closed its doors you may not be able to get an authentic Green Thing or Swamp Thing, since so many of the bars seem to fudge a bit on the recipes. (Such as substituting less expensive watermelon liquor for Midori®.)
            So perhaps you would like to try making them at home. Since a version of the recipe seems to be out there, I decided we would share the ORIGINAL RECIPE with our readers. I figured if all these restaurants want to make our drinks, they might as well make them correctly!!

Revised from a July 1999 article By Bobbi Johnson Holmes

 Green Thing Recipe

When you order one out, make sure they are using Midori®, or it isn't a real Green Thing or Swamp Thing! You must begin with a 22 ounce brandy snifter. Pack it with ice. And I mean pack it! One of the tricks of making it correctly is over packing the glass with ice.
The second trick is to layer each ingredient. Add each ingredient in the order given below. 2 1/2 ounces of Midori®.
Then add 1 1/2 ounces of light rum.
Add pineapple juice. Fill to about 1/2" from the brim of the glass.
Top the drink with grapefruit juice.
Garnish your drink with a wedge of fresh pineapple (not a canned pineapple ring!!) and a maraschino cherry.
Swamp Thing To make a Swamp Thing, follow the above directions, but reduce the pineapple juice slightly to make room for 3/4 oz of dark rum, which you will float on the top of the grapefruit juice.