366. Waldorf Queen Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Tinkerman’s Gin (Sweet Spice)
  0.5 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso
  0.5 Dolin Dry
  1 quarter orange
  2 quarter-slices pineapple

Muddle pineapple in shaker, add ingredients and fine ice, rappé well (shake vigorously 30 till nicely frosted), strain into cocktail glass, serve. — In 1913, Jacques Straub, ever the entrepeneur of all things Waldorf, includes this Bronx variant under the name Waldorf Queen’s. JM1916 picks up with slight variation, dropping the possessive marker (and thus any connection to a New York borough name, a là Bronx). The same drink proved popular and was included in books like McElhone’s 1927 Barflies & Cocktails (under the simplified name Waldorf). The Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931), which usually holds the best claim, calls it the Waldorf Bronx and makes it much simpler than a Bronx, with only gin, orange juice, and pineapple slices:

Here is my version of Jack’s recipe.

354. Tuxedo Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Gin Lane 1751 Old Tom Gin
  1.5 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  3 dashes Angostura bitters
  1 dash Luxardo maraschino
  1 dash St. George absinthe verte

Fill mixing-glass half full with ice, stir well (about 30 seconds), strain into cocktail glass, add cherry (here Amarena), serve. —This heavy-hitter classic cocktail from the Tuxedo Club, NY, is offered by Grohusko in a redder, more heavily bittered incarnation. Straub 1913 sees Jack and raises him a barspoon of sherry wine (authentic secret or misguided allusion to the Tussetto? See previous post). McElhone garnishes this with a lemon twist. Craddock (in the No. 2 by this name) has cherry and expressed lemon peel, but the drink is shaken. For further information, see Difford’s detailed post.
 

343. Taxi Cocktail

My interpretation:

  1 oz Castle & Key dry gin

  1 oz Dolin Dry

  2 tsp lime juice

  2 tsp St. George absinthe verte

Fill shaker with fine ice, frappé / shake vigorously 40-50 strokes, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This cold dry martini with lime and absinthe comes from Straub 1913 and finds its way thence into JM1916, which changes barspoons to teaspoons but keeps everything else the same.

335. Sphinx Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.25 oz Beefeater Dry Gin
  0.33 oz Dolin Dry
  0.33 oz Vermut Lustau

Fill mixing-glass with ice, stir, strain into cocktail glass, garnish with lemon peel or slice. — This perfect martini riff with thin lemon garnish first appears in Straub 1913 and is picked up in JM1916.

330. Society Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.25 oz Beefeater Gin
  0.75 oz Dolin Dry
  1 dash Jack Rudy Grenadine

Fill mixing-glass with broken ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This martini with a dash of grenadine first appears in Straub 1913 and is borrowed for JM 1916.
 

304. Rolls-Royce Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Castle & Key Dry Gin
  0.5 oz Dolin Dry
  0.5 oz Vermut Lustau
  1 dash DOM Benedictine

Fill shaker half-full with cracked ice, shake 20-30 seconds, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This Perfect Martini with Benedictine is found in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) and was found popular or worthy enough to be included in JM 1933.

292. Racquet Club Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Castle & Key Dry Gin
  1 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth

Fill mixing-glass with ice, stir (or more authentically, shake), strain into cocktail glass, twist orange peel over and garnish; serve. — This 1:1 Dry Martini with a twist first appears by this name in Straub 1913 and is borrowed for JM 1916. It appears in Savoy (1930) as a 2:1 Dry Martini shaken with orange bitters. The Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931) has both orange bitters and peel, and calls for frappé (thus shaken). The lack of instruction whether to shake or stir is due to the omission in typically terse Straub.
 

291. Queen's Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Plymouth Gin
  0.5 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  0.5 oz Noilly Prat Rouge
  1 piece pineapple (in mixing-glass)
  1 T orange juice

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass, serve with fresh pineapple garnish. — This recipe appears at first glance to be a riff on the Bronx in order to give the borough of Queens its own drink; and thus, the spelling should probably omit the apostrophe. Indeed, by comparison with some popular Bronx recipes, its only peculiar contribution is the addition of pineapple to the shaker. Long before its first appearance in 1916, there was a Queen’s Highball with Amer Picon and Grenadine (see JM 1908). This drink, clearly unrelated, appears eight years later without any precedent in Straub. Its analogs otherwise include the identically named “Queen’s” in Barflies & Cocktails (1927) and in the Savoy (1930), which specifies crushed pineapple, and the “Queen” in the Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931).
 

248. Nutting Cocktail

My Interpretation:
  1.25 oz Beefeater London Dry Gin
  0.75 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  1 dash Angostura bitters
  1 dash Fee Brothers orange bitters

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This Martini riff calling lavishly for two bitters, is first found with this name in Straub 1913, borrowed in 1916, when the 2:1 ratio became 3:2. In 1933, “dry gin” was changed to “gin” either accidentally or without effect (a vague term in 1916 and 1933).

245. Newman Cocktail

This Dry Martini riff with a bitter-orange amaro accent is borrowed from Straub to make its JM debut in 1916, but both men may have known it from the old Waldorf Bar, which, besides presenting it as a Perfect Martini riff which is frappéed rather than simply shaken, also provides an interesting detail:

Here is the JM1933 take with Amaro CioCiaro sitting in for Amer Picon. Bigallet China-China Amer, now widely available, would do just as well if not better, though not much better for the price.
 

234. Metropolitan Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Noilly Prat Extra Dry Vermouth
  1.5 oz Western Grace Brandy

Fill mixing-glass 1/2 full with fine ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This recipe, a dry brandy manhattan, if we might call it that, was added to the JM repertoire in 1912. It is hard to choose the best dry vermouth to go with brandy. Noilly Prat seems to work better than Dolin Dry does. Straub 1913 has it with additional 2 dashes of Angostura bitters. In the Old Waldorf Bar Days, this recipe is known as Metropole and adds Orange and Peychaud’s Bitters as well as a cherry. It is there ascribed to the hotel of that name.
 

 

230. McCutcheon Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Beefeater London Dry Gin
  0.5 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  0.5 oz Casa Mariol Vermut Negra
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters
  1 dash Angostura Bitters
  1 dash Hiram Walker Anisette

Fill mixing-glass with ice, stir ingredients except Anisette, strain into cocktail glass, finish with Anisette using spoon or mister. — This enhanced perfect Martini first appears in Straub 1913 and is then included in JM1916.

228. Mary Garden Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Dubonnet Rouge
  0.5 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  1 dash Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, stir, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — Named after the famous, early-20th c. opera singer (d. 1967), this lighter, aperitif wine-based cocktail first appears in JM 1916.

204. La Roche Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  0.75 oz Castle & Key Dry Gin
  0.75 oz Dolin Dry
  0.75 oz Lustau Vermut
  2 T fresh orange juice

Frappé (shake with cracked ice), strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This Bronx riff (resembling a perfect martini with OJ) comes in equal portions for easy preparation and makes a decent brunchtime libation. Its first appearance in JM 1912 (1910s) is in paragraph form rather than list form, which to me suggests borrowing from another, older-style source, like Boothby, which uses paragraphs. However, I have been unable to locate any possible source to date. Jack’s instruction to “frappez” here is rare, and as such, difficult to interpret precisely. He may simply mean shake hard with ice, or else he may refer to crushed or shaved ice being placed in the glass with the strained drink; but then, the instruction to shake is absent. I take it here as an synonym for shake.

195. Jim Lee Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Captive Spirits Big Gin
  0.5 Dolin Dry
  0.5 Casa Mariol Vermut Negra
  2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
  2 dashes Angostura bitters
  
Shake with ice, strain, serve in cocktail glass. — This Perfect Martini riff comes with an added dose of bitters, providing an augmented ruddy blush to the drink. It first appears in Straub 1913 and is picked up in JM 1916.
 

185. Irving Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Aviation American Gin
  0.75 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  0.25 oz homemade Calisaya bitter liqueur
  1 slice of orange (for shaker), another for garnish

Fill glass (12 oz) with broken ice, frappé/shake 30 seconds, strain into cocktail glass, garnish with orange slice, serve. — This JM 1908 original, a sort of orange-bitter martini riff, first called for Gordon Dry gin and Chappaz vermouth. The instructions invariably call for the orange slice before adding ice or shaking. I added another slice in the shaker for good measure. Straub picks it up in 1913 and also lists the orange slice before the shake.
 

179. Ideal Cocktail

 

My interpretation:

  1 oz Big Gin

  0.5 oz Dolin Dry

  0.5 oz Alessio Vermouth Chinato

  1/8 grapefruit wedge

Shake with cracked ice, strain into cocktail glass, garnish with fresh 1/8 grapefruit slice, serve. — This recipe is similar to that in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) which calls for a stronger 2:1 mixture of Dry Gin and Sweet Vermouth with 3 dahses of Maraschino and a “nut” garnish. I have substituted a piece of grapefruit to indicate more directly the composition of the mixture. The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book (1935) similarly calls for using 2:1 Plymouth Gin and Sweet Vermouth, adding: “flavor with grapefruit.” The purpose of including grapefruit in the shaker is ostensibly to express oil as well as to extract a little juice.

 

176. Hudson Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Aviation Gin
  1 oz Dolin Dry
  3 dashes Regan’s orange bitters

Stir with broken ice, strain, serve with olive. — In Straub 1913, this cocktail calls for sweet vermouth, dry gin, and an orange slice rather than an olive. The recipe in JM with dry vermouth goes back at least as far as 1910s. JM 1910s and both 1916 call for Holland Gin. Here is my version with the 1933 recipe an American gin.
 

171. Hoffman House Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  1 oz Aviation American Gin
  1 oz Dolin Dry
  2 dashes Regan’s Orange Bitters
  
Shake 30 seconds, strain into cocktail glass. Twist lemon over glass, garnish, and serve. — This recipe from the famed Hoffman House bar appears previously in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) but in no prior JM edition. The Savoy specification of Plymouth gin is omitted in favor of a generic denomination. The Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book adds this note:

I have used a softer American in view of the apparently original call for Plymouth:

169. Highstepper Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.25 oz Big Gin London Dry
  0.75 oz Dolin Dry
  2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This shaken Martini riff is taken from Straub’s Manual for JM 1916, altering the original 2:1 ratio to a softer 3:2 as typical with Jack Grohusko, who seems interesting either in saving money or keeping his customers more sober.