The Jimmie Lee

An Old Waldorf Bar Days Recipe

For some reason, March is always madness for me. I know posts have been slow in the coming this month, but the day job has to come first!

I'm sure my great-grandpba Parker, an Irish-American from county Cork, would not approve of my failing to post a good drink in honor of the day though...so to him I raise this Gaelic inspired riff on a classic perfect martini, because a great gin and vermouth drink is always good in my book!

The recipe appears in the 1931 title, Old Wardorf Bar Days, as follows:

A good story, though hard to say if there is any truth to it. Johnnie Solon was apparently prone to embellishment in his fact giving. 

If nothing else, it's a great drink...and what can be more appropriate for St. Patty's day, and to honor my own ancestor, than a (good) drink named in honor of a Irish-American immigrant from the early 20th century.

Jimmie Lee

1 ounce (30 ml) Noilly Prat dry French vermouth

1 ounce (30 ml) Punt e Mes sweet Italian vermouth

1 ounce (30 ml) Plymouth Gin

1 dash Peychaid's Bitters

Stir the gin and vermouth well with ice, pour into a double rocks glass mostly filled with crushed ice. Add some more crushed ice to the top and add dash of bitters to the fresh ice. Twist a slice of orange peel over top, rub the rim of the glass and drop in as a garnish.

As you could expect with 2/3 the volume being made of vermouth, the drink has strong herbal and wine characteristics, but the gin gives the drink a backbone. 

It reminded me a lot of a good a sherry cobbler (yes, they are growing on me). The Peychaud's bitters on top allows its aromatic qualities to really shine, especially with the added orange zest.

It is quite refreshing, and seemed to give a hint of the warm weather around the corner, when crushed ice season will return in full force!

Since the hint of spring is what this holiday has always really been about to me anyway, I chose this recipe to celebrate it. Happy St. Patty's everyone, I raise this one to you as well!

(By the way, if you happen to have Chartreuse Elixir Vegetal, a few dashes on the top in addition to the Peychaud's sends this one to a whole 'nother level - Cheers!)

Easy

An Old Waldorf Bar Days Recipe

Easy


1 3/4 ounces (52.5 ml) Bombay Dry Gin
1/4 oz (7.5 ml) Carpano Antica Vermouth
1 dash Angostura Orange Bitters


Shake and Strain into a cocktail glass.

I'll admit that I was in the mood for something easy and gin forward when I came across this one. It's very much both of those things. A great choice for gin lovers.

I have made and enjoyed a lot of shaken gin martinis in my day prior to discovering the wonders of the mixing glass.

While common wisdom today would call for this to be stirred, and I would certainly agree looking at the list, I decided to follow the instructions on this one.

This is very gin forward and does take me back to my early days with the martini, though this is much better than any I tried back then.

Do be careful adding the orange bitters, it is easy to overdo them, 3-5 drops and your good. A healthy "dash" right from the standard sized bottle is likely to be too much.

The drink is almost all gin, and that's what you end up tasting the most, but the touch of sweet vermouth adds just enough character to the drink to make it interesting. The orange bitters, when not overdone, makes up for the lack of zested citrus peel garnish and gives the drink some nice clean citrus notes.

If you do stir this, give it a good long stir with lots of ice to reach maximum chill (2-3 minutes). This drink should be served ice cold - and since shaking is the most efficient way to reach that temperature it is not a bad way to go, especially when you are in the mood for something easy.

Full House Cocktail

An Old Waldorf Bar Days Recipe

FULL HOUSE

1 ounce (30 ml) Yellow Chartreuse

1 ounce (30 ml) Benedictine

1 ounce (30 ml) Laird's 7 1/2 year Apple Brandy

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir ingredients well with ice and strain into glass filled with crushed ice.

A full house indeed! This may have been named in honor of a winning hand, and as rich as it tastes, I would imagine it a welcome libation to order after a big win with hand of same name. With so many bold flavors fighting for space on your palate though the name is a bit of a double entendre, and it could have been an inside joke with the bartenders.

I like it...a lot actually. It's intense, and not a combination that you encounter often. It doesn't hurt that it's made with ingredients I love to use either. A good one when you are in the mood for something on the wild side.

The Lone Tree Cocktail

I was recently blessed with a rare first edition of Albert Stevens Crockett's 1931 classic, Old Waldorf Bar Days, from an extremely generous friend as a birthday gift.

There will be more posts to come from this treasured volume. The Lone Tree may not be the sexiest drink to start with, but I've always had an interest in trying it as I've come across the recipe in different books. So when I found it again here, it sounded like a great place to start.

As it is explained in David Wondrich's introduction to the Mud Puddle reprint of Jacques Straub's 1914 book Drinks, many of the recipes from Straub's books were likely "borrowed" from the famous hand-written books of the Waldorf bar with some limited help from his friend Oscar.

Jacques and Oscar Tschirky (who was one of the Waldorf's most famous bartenders) came over to America from Switzerland together on the same boat, and Oscar even contributed a blurb to the beginning of Straub's book.

The beauty of Old Waldorf Bar Days, which was not written until at least 17-18 years after Drinks, is that Crockett had the full cooperation of many of the "veteran employees" of the old Waldorf, among other collaborators that had "been regular patrons of the Bar who knew its habitués and what went on there."

Both titles are great resources. Drinks contains over 700 recipes in a pocket sized format. The instructions are usually wrong, and the drinks do take a fair amount of general knowledge to be successful with, but it's been a favored book for nearly 100 years for it's inspirational and practical nature.

The Old Waldorf Bar Days advertises "Four Hundred and Ninety-one Appealing Appetizers and Salutary Potations" in a handsome 6x9 perfect bound volume and its recipes are rich in detail, explanation and refinement (not to mention the many wonderful illustrations by Leighton Budd).

(Early history: The Lone Tree appeared first in 1900 in The Cocktail Book, A Sideboard Manual for Gentleman, as well as in the 1913 edition of Applegreen's Bar Book.) 

Straub in 1914 lists the Lone Tree Cocktail as:

When it appears in Old Waldorf Days in 1931, there is an accompanying story.

Tom gin has become Plymouth, a big change! Orange bitters have been added, and the ratio has been taken from 2:1 gin to vermouth, to a 1:1 ratio.

It appears to have been a very popular cocktail, and I'm thinking that word must have spread quickly - and likely by mouth - as the recipes lack consistency.

Four years before the Old Waldorf Bar Days was published, in Barflies and Cocktails by Harry McElhone (1927), you have this recipe:

Five years after it was published, Frank Mier (working in Paris) provided this recipe in the 1936 classic The Artistry of Mixing Drinks.

So what's a person to do? To me, these similarities point to a sweet martini with a bitter orange influence.

Based on the back-story provided in the Old Waldorf Bar Days book, I feel a bit better prepared to give it a try, so here's my version of the "that-time" drink for your refreshment.

The Lone Tree Cocktail

1.5 ounces (45 ml) Plymouth Gin
1.5 ounces (45 ml) Sweet Vermouth (Punt e Mes)
1 dash orange bitters


Stir well with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.


(Since this post is also introducing the Crockett book, it's only fitting to use his recipe.)

The 1:1 ratio of the clean-crisp Plymouth gin to the spicy-bitter, "grapefruity" Punt e Mes, along with the nice citrus hit from the bitters and orange peel oils, provide a very rich "sweet martini" experience...fitting for a recipe from the Old Waldof.

Enjoy!