These
spots have also been the birthplaces of some of the most iconic cocktails since
the dawn of the Grand Tour. Here, eight of our faves.
Colin
Field, head bartender at the Ritz Paris’s Bar Hemingway, and Damon Boelte, head
bartender and co-owner of Grand Army in Brooklyn, help us trace the history of
a handful of classic cocktails—like the Bronx and the Manhattan above—that put
their namesake on the map.
1. The Japanese
Cocktail
“It’s
a brandy old-fashioned of sorts,” says Damon Boelte of one of the first
cocktails in the 1862 edition of Jerry Thomas’s How to Mix Drinks to be listed
by name rather than by ingredients. Though the drink dates from the1860
Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States and is thought to have been
inspired by the representatives who lived near and drank at Thomas’s bar in
downtown Manhattan, there is nothing even remotely Japanese about the
ingredients. The moniker, however, presages the ebb and flow of America’s
fascination with Japanese culture in subsequent years.
2 1/2 oz. Louis Royer
Cognac (106 proof)
1/2 oz. Orgeat
3 Dashes of bitters
Serve up with a twist
of orange.
2. Queen's Park
Swizzle
It’s
no wonder that this mojito-like cocktail, which originated in Port- of-Spain’s
now-defunct Queen’s Park Hotel, was invented in the 1920s. That was the height
of Prohibition and Trinidad’s heyday as an upscale winter escape—a moment when
Americans would travel far and wide to booze liberally.
8–12 Muddled mint
leaves
2 oz. Aged gold rum
(the higher the proof, the better)
3/4 oz. Lime juice
3/4 oz. Simple syrup
Pour over mint and
ice and swizzle; serve with several dashes of bitters.
3. Singapore Sling
“A
very beautiful example of how a bartender or a bar can become the lighthouse of
a hotel,” says Bar Hemingway’s Colin Field of the iconic mixture invented in
1915 by Ngiam Tong Boon, the Hainanese-born barman at the Raffles Hotel in
Singapore. The drink is so popular at the property's Long Bar that the staff
makes some 1,200 of them a day.
1 1/2 oz. Gin
1 oz. Orange juice
3/4 oz. Lemon juice
1 oz. Curaçao
1/4 oz. Benedictine
A splash of seltzer
A drizzle of Cherry
Heering
Shake and serve over
ice.
4. The Frisco
cocktail
The
origins of the drink have, unfortunately, been lost to time. “All I can say
about the Frisco is that I love whiskey, I love Benedictine, and I love that
town,” Boelte says. It is often served as a sour (with lemon juice) and shaken.
1 1/2 oz. Rye whiskey
1 1/ 2 oz.
Benedictine
A dash of bitters
Stir and serve up
with a peel of orange or lemon.
5. The Etna Spritz
cocktail
So
called for the unobstructed view of Mount Etna from the seaside terrace of the
Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo in Taormina, the cocktail is bar manager Alfio
Liotta’s decidedly Sicilian riff on the Aperol Spritz.
1 1/2 oz. Campari
1 1/2 oz. Sicilian
orange liqueur
1 1/2 oz. Sicilian
sparkling wine
A splash of soda
Stir with ice;
garnish with a slice of Sicilian orange and its zest.
6. The French 75
cocktail
Named
after the 75-millimeter field artillery cannon used during the First World War,
the original French 75 was created in Paris in 1915 by “a chap called Henry of
Henry’s Bar,” Field says, at a now-shuttered hotel by the same name. As with
cocktails themselves, which, he adds, were “invented by Brits but made famous
by Americans,” it was the Stork Club in New York that popularized the drink.
1 1/2 oz. Gin
3/4 oz. Lemon juice
1/2 oz. Simple syrup
Shake with ice and
top with Champagne and a lemon twist.
7. The Bronx...
In
the early 1900s, the Waldorf-Astoria’s bartender Johnnie Solon enhanced the
traditional martini’s orange bitters with a splash of orange juice. The name is
said to have come from Solon’s visit to the newly opened Bronx Zoo, whose wild
creatures reminded him of some of his own patrons after too much drink. The
Bronx, which once rivaled the Manhattan, was made popular, according to Field,
by legendary barman Frank Meier, who started at the Hoffman House Hotel on
Broadway and 25th, later ending up at Paris’s Bar Hemingway.
2 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. Sweet
vermouth
1/2 oz. Blanc
vermouth
1 oz. Freshly
squeezed orange juice
Serve up.
... And the Manhattan
The
drink is reputed to have been created in New York for American socialite Jennie
Jerome, a.k.a. Winston Churchill’s mother, for a party she supposedly threw at
the Manhattan Club in honor of Samuel Tilden’s gubernatorial election in 1874.
But according to Field, “she was about to give birth to the future prime
minister, so she couldn’t have been in the club.” More likely is that it was
invented by a bartender there, “for, but not in the presence of, Jerome,” Field
says.
2 oz. Rye whiskey
1/2 oz. Sweet
vermouth
1/2 oz. Blanc
vermouth
3 Dashes of bitters
Serve up, stirred.
By Henry
Leutwyler/ CNT