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.

328. Smallwood Cocktail

My interpretation:
  0.5 oz Beefeater Gin
  0.5 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
  0.5 oz Vermut Lustau
  0.5 oz Cherry Heering 

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — The origins of this perfect martini + cherry cordial are obscure. It appears only in JM1933 and nowhere in the earlier usual suspects. Whether named for the revolutionary general and governor of Maryland, or the vacationers’ hamlet in Bethel, New York, is unknown.
 

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.

295. Raymond Hitch-Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2 oz Vermut Lustau
  1 T fresh orange juice
  1 slice pineapple + 1 piece (for garnish)

Shake with pineapple slice 20 seconds, strain into cocktail glass, garnish with fresh pineapple piece, serve. — This light vermouth-based cocktail with a humorous name (a play on the name Raymond Hitchcock) is found in Savoy (1930), from which it appears to be taken into JM 1933.

285. Prince Cocktail

My interpretation:
  0.75 Aria Dry Gin
  0.75 Hiram Walker Crème de Menthe
  0.5 Vermut Lustau

Fill mixing-glass with ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass. — Like most of the “P” cocktails, this one, a minty traditional Martini in approximate thirds, appears first in Straub before JM 1916, as usual in perfect thirds (before Grohusko’s adjustment). The Old Waldorf Bar recipe, which doesn't quite compute mathematically, has a whisky base (1/3) with addition of crème de menthe and orange bitters—A Martini-riff with mint (see the next recipe, No. 286); this drink ups the mint, drops the bitters, and lowers the vermouth. Thus Straub’s and Grohusko’s Prince Cocktail is a variant of the Prince Henry rather than a distinct drink. This also represents a sort of reversal of the Old Waldorf Bar Book recipes.

279. Plaza Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Aria American Dry Gin
  0.5 oz Lustau Vermut
 1 slice pineapple

Fill mixing-glass with broken ice, shake (including piece of pineapple), strain, rinsing strainer of pineapple pulp if necessary, serve in cocktail glass with pineapple garnish. — This ananas-tinged Martini-riff, named for the Plaza Hotel of New York fame (thus often found as “Hotel Plaza Cocktail”) is first found in Straub 1913 with typically terse directions, reproduced in JM1916 with the ratio 13:7 or roughly 2:1 gin to vermouth. This is rounded up to 3:1 in 1933. What to do with the pineapple is the primary question, at which most recipes guess. Barflies & Cocktails (1927) gives the recipe in equal thirds: gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, along with a “chunk of pineapple” ambiguously mentioned twice, both in the ingredients and in the service. The popular Savoy (1930) version copies a feebler equal-thirds version. By 1932, this cocktail is found, e.g., in the Stafford Bros.’ book, in equal fourths with pineapple juice taking the last slot in place of the pineapple piece (to strain which might slow the bar service considerably); this last recipe, though perhaps degenerate in its call for juice, is nevertheless evidence that the the pineapple is no mere garnish, but an ingredient integral to the drink’s identity.

274. Pick-Me-Up Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  0.75 oz Rémy Martin VSOP
  0.75 oz Lustau Vermut
  0.5 oz St. George Absinthe Verte

Frappé (shake intensely with fine ice) 25-30 seconds, strain, serve. — This bracing morning recipe first appears in Straub 1913 in perfect thirds, and from thence is borrowed for JM1916 with a slight reduction of the absinthe. Typical of a class of drinks reputed to lift the spirits especially in the morning, it resembles similarly named recipes in a number of mixology books. Most notably, I may mention the 1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days recipe, 1:1 Absinthe to Sweet Vermouth with 2 dashes acid/lemon phosphate; shake, strain. Though absinthes vary in character, the principle that guides Jack’s adjustment here is well to note. With a softer white absinthe, for example, one might choose to use equal thirds, with a VS cognac, perhaps reduce its quantity. However, the drink should not be perfectly balanced. It should be “bracing.”

273. Philadelphia Cocktail

My interpretation

  1 oz Aria American Dry Gin

  1 oz Lustau Vermut

  1 dash Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao

Stir with ice, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This recipe first appears in Straub 1913, by the same description (Martini with a dash of curaçao) and from Straub is borrowed into JM 1916. In Straub, however, a dash of Orange Bitters is included in the recipe. I have interpreted the curaçao as a substitute for the bitters, but it would be perhaps more justifiable to see both involved here. Note also that in earlier editions of Jack’s Manual, there is a drink called Philadelphia Bronx, which is essentially a sort of Perfect served in an Old-Fashioned glass and topped off with ginger ale.

256. Orange Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Beefeater London Dry Gin
  0.5 oz Vermut Lustau
  1 dash Chartreuse
  0.25 oz (1 T) fresh orange juice

Fill mixing-glass with broken ice, shake, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This recipe first appears in JM 1910 (2nd ed.) with one small but distinct difference:

This suggests that the Orange Cocktail had a unique vessel, a hollowed orange-peel, perhaps half an orange peel set intact into a coupe. This novelty was eventually dropped, as demonstrated by JM 1916. Here I have chosen a rounded wine glass in homage of the name and original presentation.

243. Narragansett Cocktail

This recipe with a toponymic name, as if the Rhode Island yacht-clubbers’ take on a Manhattan, appears in a 2:1 ratio in Straub 1913 (where absinthe is used instead of anisette), which translates, as usual, to a slightly less tipsy 3:2 ratio when borrowed by JM in 1916. The vermouth, anisette, and olive recall the Montana Club listed a few entries above on the same page, but the effect with sweet vermouth and rye is decidedly different. Both authors likely got the recipe from the old Waldorf manual, which finds expression in the Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931). There we see first the important note “No Bitters.” This was to prevent the bartender from automatically adding the typical bitters to a drink which had every sign of being a cocktail, which everyone knew meant liquor, sweetener, bitters, and dilution. This delves back into the pre-cocktail Sling. Here the anisette (is this an indication that JM is more faithful to the original?) serves the purpose of bitters, though. Incidentally, the Old Waldorf also specifies straining the drink onto the olive, not dropping the latter in after. I include the Straub version with absinthe for comparison:

239. Milo Cocktail

This recipe comes from Straub’s Manual, 1913/1914, with the base proportion of 2:1 rather than 3:2. Pepsin or Pepson (as in Savoy) bitters are defunct, but the name suggests a digestive purpose, for which scarcely anything is so good as Underberg (which would often be called Boonekamp bitters in the old days); granted, they were perhaps closer to standard Angostura or Boker’s in flavor. JM 1916 called for his apparent sponsors, Gordon’s and M&R.
 

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.

203. Larchmont Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Lustau Amontillado
  1.5 oz Alessio Vermouth Chinato

Fill glass with cracked ice, stir, serve. — The first time I did this, I unconsciously inserted the word “strain” into the recipe, and got what is essentially an Adonis:

However, this is incorrect. There is no “strain.” Ever since the Third JM in 1912, this recipe has simply said “fill glass with cracked ice, stir, and serve.” So I realized it had to be served on cracked ice. This could mean in a larger, perhaps claret-sized, glass, though none is specified. Here is my latest preparation, using Lustau for the vermouth as well as the sherry. It kind of resembles an iced tea this way.