346. Trilby Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Castle & Key London Dry Gin
  1 oz Martini & Rossi Sweet Vermouth
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters
  1 dash Angostura aromatic bitters
  2 barspoons Rothman & Winter crème de violette

Fill mixing-glass half full with ice, stir well (20-30 seconds), strain into cocktail glass, add cherry, add crème de violette carefully so that it settles in a clear layer at the bottom of the glass. — Of all the recipes going by the name Trilby, this one may be the most perplexing, due to the fact that the specific gravity of the concoction is not high enough to support a crème of any kind on its surface. This cannot be traced back further than JM1916. Straub 1913 has the recipe but calls only for a 1/6 jigger of Crème Yvette and does not specify floating or layering of any kind. He also uses Old Tom gin (that is usually the source of Grohusko’s generic term “gin,” and indeed it is supported by earlier editions calling for Tom gin). McElhone’s 1927 recipe replaces the Old Tom gin with scotch and the
Crème Yvette with Parfait d’Amour. The Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931) keeps (or rather, is the source of) Grohusko’s recipe, without specifying float or layering of the Crème Yvette, thus confirming the propriety of laying the blame at the feet of Grohusko (or whoever was his direct source).

277. Ping-Pong Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette
  1 oz Plymouth Sloe Gin
  1 tsp lemon juice

 Shake with fine ice, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This St. Louis-born dessert duo, augmented with a balancing squirt of lemon and floral Violette note, does much to improve the reputation of Sloe Gin. The simple and effective (indeed, award-winning—see below) recipe is first found in Charles Mahoney’s Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide (1905), where it specifies 3 dashes of lemon juice but also adds a cherry (Jack often omits garnishes). It is from there we also interpolate the usage of fine ice for “mixing.” That recipe’s final note warns against making it “too sweet.” The later Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) has a 2:2:1 ratio, which brings the lemon juice more forward (it only needs more than 3 dashes if those are small dashes). In the Old Waldorf Bar Book (1930), a Ping-Pong cocktail is a simple sloe gin-based drink and seems to have forgotten all about Bennett and the Hoffman House. The Waldorf, it states there, had a ping-pong table in its old bar (this seems to be a set-up for a bad joke about drunkenness): it calls for 1:1 sloe gin and dry vermouth with orange bitters—related perhaps, but quite different in effect. Barflies & Cocktails (1927) reproduces the original recipe as well as the attribution of the recipe to Mr. James G. Bennett of the Broken Heart Café, St. Louis, MO, while omitting Mr. Mahoney’s recognition of Mr. Bennett for winning the Police Gazette Bartender’s Medal for 1903.