On the House

Papa Doble

The Papa Doble

Ernest Hemingway was  an aficianado of the frozen Daiquiri. In a June, 1939 letter to his son Patrick (11), commenting on a recent boxing match, he wrote:  “[Tony] Galento certainly came very close to knocking [Joe] Louis out and if he can do that on beer I wonder what he could do on Frozen Daiquiris?” Later in the same letter, he went on to say, “We stayed up late and I drank a few highly frozen Daiquiris just to see what their effect would be (it was moderately terrific and made me feel a friend of all mankind). Then the next day Mr. Finney and Papa went out to fish and were both sound asleep but quite comfortable when a huge marlin took the bait...” 

Damned fish, spoiling a good hangover nap....

Hemingway’s love of the Daiquiri is usually traced to his favorite bar in Havana, The Florida, aka, “El Floridita;” however the above letter suggests that he’d already developed a taste for them during his Key West years, before he moved to Cuba.

While living in Cuba, Hemingway became a regular at El Floridita, which was owned and manned by Constantino (Constante) Ribailagua. Hemingway didn’t like sugar in his drinks; it even showed up in his prose. In "Islands in the Stream," young Tom Hudson made a drink for his father, with the assurance, “I put lime, bitters, and no sugar in it.” As an aside, one can assume that Hemingway would be horrified at the number of frozen Daiquiri bars in his beloved French Quarter, especially (atrocity of atrocities!) the one now occupying The Old Absinthe House Bar. That Papa and Constante’s hand-crafted creation could have helped spawn the grain alcohol Slurpees of today would no doubt have him spinning in his grave. But I digress.

Double Frozen Daiquiri No Sugar

Page 30 of the Floridita menu contains the recipe that we’ve come to know as the Hemingway Daiquiri, though it is misspelled as the “E. Henmiway” Special:

2 ounces Bacardi
1 Teaspoonful Grape Fruit Juice
1 Teaspoonful Marraschino
The juice of  1/2 lemon (sic)
Frappe ice
Shake well and serve frappe.

Please note my comment about the use of “lemon.” This is a common error in transcription, “lost in translation,” so to speak. In Cuba, the term “limon” can be used to refer to either a lemon or a lime, and to differentiate, “limon verde” is often used to specify “green lemon,” or lime. The menu itself confirms this, as the Spanish-language side of the recipe indeed calls for “Jugo 1/2 limon verde.” Gringo mixologist beware!!


    Hemingway’s writings were chock full of drink references.   A few excerpts from the novel "Islands in the Stream:"

The Floridita was open now and he bought the two papers that were out, Crisol and Alerta , and took them to the bar with him. He took his seat on a tall bar stool at the extreme left of the bar. His back was against the wall toward the street and his left was covered by the wall behind the bar. He ordered a double frozen daiquiri with no sugar from Pedrico, who smiled his smile which was almost like the rictus on a dead man who has died from a suddenly broken back, and yet was a true and legitimate smile, and started to read Crisol.

   

“...he had drunk double frozen daiquiris, the great ones that Constante made, that had no taste of alcohol and felt, as you drank them, the way downhill glacier skiing feels running through powder snow ....”

"I love it," he said out loud.
"What?"
"Drinking. Not just drinking. Drinking these double frozens without sugar. If you drank that many with sugar in it would make you sick."
"Ya lo creo. And if anybody else drank that many without sugar they would be dead."
"Maybe I’ll be dead."
"No, you won’t. You’ll just break the record and then we’ll go to my place and you’ll go to sleep and the worst thing that will happen is if you snore."
"Did I snore last time?"
"Horrores. And you called me by about ten different names in the night."
........

He was drinking another of the frozen daiquiris with no sugar in it and as he lifted it, heavy and the glass frost-rimmed, he looked at the clear part below the frapped top and it reminded him of the sea. The frapped part of the drink was like the wake of a ship and the clear part was the way the water looked when the bow cut it when you were in shallow water over marl bottom. That was almost the exact color... “This frozen daiquiri, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots.”
.....

She made it herself from the bottle Serafin had left in front of her on the bar and Thomas Hudson looked at it and said, “That’s a fresh water drink. That is the color of the water in the Firehole River before it joins the Gibbon to become the Madison. If you put a little more whisky in it you could make it the color of a stream that comes out of a cedar swamp to flow into the Bear River at a place called Wab-me-me.”

Gee, kinda reminds me of that night back in law school, trying to impress that girl from Pittsburgh: “You know, that Bartles and Jaymes Iced Tea you’ve got there reminds me of the Monongahela, where it meets the Allegheny to form the Ohio....... Wait, don’t go, what did I say?”

The Bacardi Cocktail

As noted above, I have a special appreciation for this drink. Indeed, the rum industry has brought us several notable trademark cases over the years, including the ongoing squabbles over the name Havana Club .

The Bacardi Cocktail was likely invented around the time of World War I, and reached some degree of popularity after Prohibition. But many bars and restaurants, conscious of the bottom-line, often substituted cheaper rums in lieu of the industry-leading Bacardi brand. The suits at Bacardi got wind of it, and Bacardi hauled a number of bar and restaurant owners into court. One such case made it to the New York Supreme Court.  In the lawsuit Compania Ron Bacardi, S.A. v. Wivel Restaurant, Inc., Justice John L. Walsh’s decision enjoined the defendant “from selling or offering for sale any mixed drink under the name BACARDI cocktail unless such drink contains as its sole alcoholic ingredient rum produced by the plaintiff.”

From a public relations standpoint, it might seem an ill-advised for Bacardi to enforce its trademark so vigorously; after all, how often do you see someone suing the users of the product, as if biting the hand that feeds you? Remind you of anything recent? It’s perhaps similar to the tactics used by the music industry, suing file swappers to prevent the unauthorized downloading of music, using peer-to-peer file sharing software. Sue your own customers?  Sometimes, it actually works!

El Floridita Bacardi Cocktail (Special)

The 1930s El Floridita menu contains a recipe for a Bacardi Cocktail (Special):
2 ounces Bacardi
1 dash Angostura
1/2 Teaspoonful Curacao
The juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 Teaspoonful Sugar
Shake and Strain

So, this one dispenses with the Grenadine, and adds Angostura bitters. Frankly, I think I prefer this one, the Grenadine can be a add a bit too much sweetness, and the inclusion of the island-flavored Angostura adds a nice Caribbean flavor to the drink.  Delicious!

The Dixie Special

In closing, I note that the inside page of the Hotel Dixie’s (see previous post) menu offers, for 35 cents, a drink called the Dixie Special. While I am not certain if this is the same or a related drink, there is a Dixie Cocktail listed in Patrick Gavin Duffy’s 1934  The Official Mixer’s Manual:

1/2 jigger dry gin
1/4 jigger French Vermouth
1/4 jigger absinthe
Juice of 1/4 orange
2 dashes Grenadine
Shake well with cracked ice and strain, serve in a cocktail or wine glass.

I guess the subtitle for this drink could be, the Obituary Cocktail Goes to the Bronx. As they say, when in New York......

(This is part one of Phil's latest blog on hotel bar menus.Phil Greene will present a seminar on the Ramos Gin Fizz at Tales of the Cocktail  in New Orleans July 19-23. Phil is also treasurer of the Museum of the American Cocktail.)

New York Dixie

Looking for a cheap, ahem, budget hotel in the Big Apple? Try the Carter Hotel, located at 25 West 43d Street, in the heart of the Times Square/theater district, where you can get a room for about 100 clams a night. As you enter the lobby, close your eyes and envision the joint in its glory days, during the 30s, 40s and 50s, when it was the Hotel Dixie. Opened in 1930 (same year as the Chrysler Building), the Dixie was one of Manhattan’s grand hotels. Just as Madison Square Garden sits atop Penn Station today, the Dixie had the Central Union Bus Terminal in the basement, with a giant turntable for the buses to change direction.

The Dixie’s Plantation Room was a favored venue for many big bands and torch singers. Al Trace and His Silly Symphonists, Toni Arden, Una Mae Carlisle, Dick Carlton, and Tony Lane and the Airplane Trio all played there. Okay, maybe not “A” list performers, but hey, Sinatra did refer to Toni Arden as “a singer’s singer.”

A weary traveler in 1936 could be sure to find “700 attractive outside rooms each with private bath and radio.” That room would set you back $2.50 a night. But the Dixie, like many grand hotels, fell on hard times in the ‘70s, and by the ‘80s was being used as a city-run shelter for homeless families. By the ‘90s, the venerable old Plantation Room became a venue for drag queen shows, as part of a notorious Times Square nightclub called Sally's Hideaway.

In addition to the nightlife at the Plantation Room, the Circle Bar and Terrace was a legendary watering hole for journalists and newspapermen, particularly from the nearby New York Times and the New Yorker. It’s commonplace for a hotel, such as the Monteleone in New Orleans, to boast of the notable writers it’s hosted. Well, during its later, seedier days, the Dixie had the dubious distinction of being the hotel where literary types checked in only to check out. Novelist William Lindsey Gresham succumbed to a sleeping pill overdose in 1962, and poet Delmore Schwartz died of a heart attack in his room at the Dixie in 1966 - in the words of Lou Reed, “some kind of heart attack probably brought on by amphetamines, liquor and God knows what else.” 

Let’s look at the menu, shall we? 

This menu is great, offering thirty, count ‘em “Thirty Popular Drinks and How to Make Them.” Since it’s summertime, let’s look at a couple of classic rum drinks, the Daiquiri and the Bacardi Cocktail.  And, no, I’m not referring to the Daiquiri made from the “just add rum and people” bottled mix or the juice cans out of the freezer. Not that there’s anything wrong with those; just as pasta sauce out of a jar can be fine, but don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s authentic. I’m talking about the classic ingredients, traditional methods, making it from scratch.

The Daiquiri and the Bacardi Cocktail - Roll Your Own

The differences are slight:  the Daiquiri is rum, lime juice and sugar, while the Bacardi is rum, lime juice and Grenadine. Oh, make sure that’s Bacardi brand rum in the latter, or the trademark lawyers will be all over you like a cheap suit.  Take it from me, I happen to be a trademark lawyer, and I’ve owned a cheap suit or two in my day. 

Indeed, on paper these drinks are very similar, an example of David Embury’s “Roll Your Own” theory, that drinks are made up of components, and subbing one for another will create a new drink. Using the terminology found in his classic 1948 book, "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks," both drinks share the same base (white rum) and modifier (in this case, a sour modifier, lime juice). The difference is in the choice of sweetener. The Daiquiri uses sugar, while the Bacardi calls for Grenadine. Note: use a Grenadine made from pomegranate juice (not just fructose or corn syrup) and you’ll make better drinks, and that includes your Shirley Temples. 

Continuing to "Roll Your Own," you’ll see that if you start with the Daiquiri and add mint and seltzer, you’ve got a Mojito. Or, replace the rum with vodka, use Cointreau or triple sec for the sweetness, add some cranberry juice and, voila, it's a Cosmopolitan. Use brandy as the base, lemon juice as the sour and Cointreau as the sweet and it's a Side Car. Rum for the brandy and it’s a White Lady. Whiskey in place of the rum and it's a Whiskey Sour…Okay, you get my point.

The Daiquiri

As with most classic drinks, there are as many stories as to the Daiquiri’s origins as theories about where  Jimmy Hoffa is. Quoting Charles H. Baker, Jr., in his epic 1939 book "The Gentleman’s Companion - Being an Exotic Drinking Book or, Around the World With Jigger, Beaker and Flask," "[w]e honestly believe that more people have boasted about the origin of this happy thought than any modern drink." Baker traces the origins to the village of Daiquiri, Cuba, attributing it (as is so typical in drink folklore) to medicinal purposes.

"There was fever. Doctors still thought that a lot of yellowjack malaria cases came from drinking-water and swamp mists. They couldn't turn off the swamp mists but they knew that diluted alcohol was a disinfectant against germs. So they put a little rum in their boiled drinking water. That tasted pretty bad so some bright citizen squeezed a lime into the thing, and a little sugar to modify the acid. Ice made from distilled water took the tropical heat off the thing. The 2 originators were my friend Harry E. Stout, now domiciled in Englewood, New Jersey, and a mining engineer associate, Mr. Jennings Cox. TIME:  summer of 1898. PLACE:  Daiquiri, a village near Santiago and the Bacardi plant, Cuba. Hence the name."

Baker’s recipe is as follows:

“1 1/2  oz white or gold Bacardi rum
2 teaspoons sugar
Juice of 1 1/2 small green limes, strained
Very finely cracked ice

Either shake very hard with finely cracked ice and pour ice and all into a tall flute cocktail glass, or put the same things into the Blender, and let frost into the delicious sherbet consistency we so admire nowadays. Never use lemon juice. And remember please, that a too-sweet Daiquiri is like a lovely lady with too much perfume."

Of course, the invention of the blender brought us the frozen Daiquiri, making that version of drink as ubiquitous and predictable as the ice cream headache that accompanies it. But a frozen Daiquiri doesn’t have to be what you’ve come to expect from the Daiquiri bars (namely, syrupy sweet) if you make it from scratch.

There are many variations on the classic Daiquiri recipe; CocktailDB.com offers about two dozen Daiquiri recipes. CocktailDB.com is operated jointly by Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh and Martin Douderoff; Ted is the curator of the Museum of the American Cocktail, and author of the amazing and indispensable book "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails."

Among these variations, of course, is the so-called Hemingway style Daiquiri. And where else to look at recipes but the source, a 1930s-era menu from the Bar La Florida in Havana, Cuba, known affectionately as El Floridita.

(This is part one of Phil's latest blog on hotel bar menus. More early next week. Phil Greene will present a seminar on the Ramos Gin Fizz at Tales of the Cocktail  in New Orleans July 19-23. Phil is also treasurer of the Museum of the American Cocktail.)

Menus from the Museum, part 2

I am in possession of old newsreel footage from the event I mentioned in my last blog, the day Huey Long taught New York how to make a Ramos Gin Fizz. The “deer-in-the-headlights” expression of the resident bartender, while being schooled by Huey and New Orleans bartender Sam Guarino, is priceless. Some excerpts from Huey:

”I’m, uh, strictly on the water wagon, I don’t drink anymore, I quit. But of course I’m going to sample this drink to see if you’ve made it right. That’s the only purpose I’m doing it is to help you out. (here, Huey flashes a sincere look into the camera) I wouldn’t touch a drop of it (wagging his finger) if I wasn’t trying to help you, to find out if you’ve mixed it right. (Huey takes a long pull on the drink) That seems like all right (another long pull) But I won’t take except enough to sample it…, but, better be sure about it, I’ll try it a little further. (another long pull) I believe that’s all right. (another long pull) I think it’s perfectly all right (another long pull, followed by a dramatic blinking of both eyes) I’m sure it’s all right!” (finishing the drink, slamming down the glass, the crowd erupting in applause).

Afterward, Huey addressed the reporters present. “An old family custom, my grandfather devoted his first day in Louisiana, spending it in the barroom teaching the young men how to mix drinks, and handing them back until he’d finally mastered the proposition.” When a reporter asked, “Are you sure he handed them back,” Huey retorted with a chuckle, “Well, handed the glass back.” Huey’s older brother, Julius Tyler Long, a Shreveport attorney, was highly indignant upon hearing this tale. "John D. Long, our grandfather, was a farmer, a religious man who never saw or made a Ramos Gin Fizz...”

I’ll close with one final Ramos anecdote, provided by legendary New Orleans writer and historian Lyle Saxon. Saxon lived in the French Quarter along with Joe Gilmore, his valet, bartender, and all-around man (picture an Orleanian Jack Benny and his creole Rochester). One sultry afternoon, Saxon and a friend were enjoying drinks in his French Quarter courtyard. From Saxon’s The Friends of Joe Gilmore:

Tomlinson said, “This is the best gin fizz I ever tasted; how do you make it?”

And I, remembering that I taught Joe how to make it, said, “Well, I’ll tell you,” and I began to count off the ingredients; but as I counted them off, I realized that I had forgotten one. I could not think what it was, so I called to Joe.
He came, barefooted and carrying the enormous cocktail shaker in his hand. He poured out the dividends in our glasses.

“You remember I taught you how to make a gin fizz?”

“Yassuh.”

“Well, I have forgotten one of the ingredients,” and I named to him the ones I remembered.

He stood grinning at me.  I said, “Tell Mr. Tomlinson what it is; I’ve forgotten.”

And Joe said, “Nosuh, Boss; if you is forgotten, that is all the better for me, and I ain’t goin’ to tell you, Suh, because the making of drinks is a strictly confidential secret.”

    ------------

Well, I’ll tell you how:

1 tablespoon powdered sugar
3-4 drops orange flower water
Juice of 1/2 lime
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1.5 oz dry gin
1 egg white (to be safe, use pasteurized eggs)
1.5 oz. milk, half and half or cream
1 -2 oz seltzer water
2 drops vanilla extract (optional)

Add all ingredients to shaker along with some large lumps of ice. If it’s a large shaker, add the seltzer now, if smaller, do so later (or the effervescence will foam over). Shake like hell for at least 3 minutes (in my cocktail seminars, we shake for the duration of  Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up,” but Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” will also do). Serve in a small high-ball or Delmonico glass.

To sample one firsthand, and to celebrate New Orleans’ rich cocktail history (and aid in its renaissance), please come to Tales of the Cocktail, July 18-23d in the French Quarter, where legendary New Orleans bar man Chris McMillian and I will conduct a seminar on this and other Crescent City classics.

For more information on this classic cocktail, see excellent articles here and here.

Menus from the Museum, part 1

This is the first of what I hope will be many blogs showcasing vintage cocktail menus, fabled old venues, classic old drinks and the great old drinkers. Today I’ll look at a couple of vintage menus from the old Roosevelt Hotel New Orleans. One, resembling the Ramos Gin Fizz itself, is dated 1951, while the “Bar… Suggestions” menu is likely pre-WWII. A Ramos Gin Fizz for 30 cents! A Martini for 25 cents! If there were ever a good reason to perfect time travel, this is it.

The Ramos Gin Fizz, the Roosevelt Hotel New Orleans

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. This classic drink is tailor made for sipping on those easy summertime days – it comes from sub-tropical New Orleans, after all - e-a-s-y, as long as someone else is makin’‘em, that is.  In truth, the Ramos Gin Fizz is worth every minute of building and shaking that goes into one.  Minutes? Yep, according to Stanley Clisby Arthur’s 1936 book, “Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Make ‘Em,” the Ramos “needs a long, steady shaking...until the mixture gets body - ‘ropy’ as some experienced bartenders express it.” 

What’s “ropy?” To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of obscenity, I can’t define it, but having made many Ramos Gin Fizzes, I know it when I see it (apologies are offered to my former law professors at Loyola New Orleans, but I’m sure they understand).

The Ramos was invented by a guy named, you guessed it, Ramos (RAH-mose). In 1888, Henry Ramos (his friends called him Carl) purchased a New Orleans saloon called the Imperial Cabinet, where the drink was likely born. In 1907, Henry moved to another New Orleans bar, the Stag, on Gravier near St. Charles. The drink became so popular that during the 1915 Mardi Gras, the Stag employed 35 “shaker boys” behind the bar.  If a shaker boy tired, he’d toss his shaker to the one behind him to carry on. Whole lotta shakin,’ indeed.

Prohibition came in 1919, and the honorable Henry Ramos closed his bar, unlike most Orleanians, who scoffed at the Volstead Act. Indeed, New Orleans held a dubious distinction in the eyes of Prohibition agent extraordinaire Izzy Einstein.  Einstein traveled the country searching for speakeasies and other scofflaws, and would record the time it took for him to procure illegal hooch. In D.C., it took an hour; in Atlanta, 17 minutes; and in Pittsburgh, it took only 11. In New Orleans?  35 seconds. Izzy got off the train, hopped in a cab, asked where he could get a drink, and the obliging cabbie produced a flask. You see, New Orleans’ legendary status in the hospitality field is not a recent invention, it’s hard-wired.

Henry Ramos died in 1928; the Noble Experiment still had another 5 years to run. But while he closed his saloon, he published his secret recipe, as a gift to the ages, or perhaps his own method of civil disobedience? So, when Prohibition ended in 1933, New Orleans’ bartenders knew how to make the previously proprietary drink. Which brings us to the Roosevelt.

The Ramos Gin Fizz was one of several “house” drinks at the old Roosevelt Hotel Bar in New Orleans back in the day. The Roosevelt made a practice of “adopting” great old New Orleans drinks that had lost their home, another example being the Sazerac (invented by my ancestor Antoine Peychaud in his pharmacy, probably in the 1850s, and perfected at the Sazerac House in the 1870s). The hotel, originally called the Grunewald, opened in 1893, and featured a subterranean-motif nightclub called “The Cave” (quite possibly America’s first nightclub). It became The Roosevelt (named for Teddy) around the time of WWI and in 1965, the Fairmont New Orleans (One of many Katrina casualties, it is currently closed).

While the Ramos does contain quite a few ingredients, they’re standard: lemon juice, lime juice, cream, gin, egg white, sugar, seltzer. And then there’s orange flower water, easily available at Amazon.com, among other places. The orange flower water offers a floral bouquet not unlike that found in a glass of viognier wine. Indeed, its inclusion in a Ramos has prompted the classic line, “It’s like drinking a flower!” Whether or not you add vanilla extract is up to you - Orleanian bartenders have long debated the use of “the twin drops of extract wrung from the heart of the vanilla bean,” as Arthur called it. Like the issue of shaking or stirring a Martini, or crushing or merely bruising the mint in a julep, this is yet another controversy in the hornet’s nest that is mixology.

The Louisiana Kingfish

Make a Ramos Gin Fizz and understand why the drink became the obsession of the Louisiana Kingfish, Senator Huey Long. Huey loved to drink, but trouble often found him when he did. One evening in 1933, Huey was out with friends at the Sands Point Casino night club on Long Island. With several Sazeracs under his belt, Huey made a spectacle of himself, eating food off other patrons’ plates, dragging women out on to the dance floor, and generally behaving like a dog.  During a visit to the men’s room, unable to find an empty urinal, Huey proceeded to take aim between the legs of one of the men standing before him.  His aim was not the best, and it netted Huey a cut above his eye seen in photos that graced the tabloid newspapers for days. So, in hopes of improving his image for the Presidential election of 1936, Huey decided to go “on the water wagon.”  But he fell off that wagon during a trip to New York in July, 1935, and it was the Ramos Gin Fizz that prompted the fall.

Huey stayed as he always did at the New Yorker Hotel. Announcing that he wasn’t able to find a decent Ramos Gin Fizz in the city, he arranged to have the Roosevelt’s bartender, Sam Guarino, flown up to New York, to teach the New Yorker’s bar staff. Of course, Huey required a quality control inspection. He sipped it, his first drink in nearly two years, and then ordered another. “Huey wanted that drink so damn bad,” said one of his bodyguards. “I’m merely sampling this to make sure you gentlemen are getting the real thing.” Two hours and five drinks later, Huey solemnly proclaimed, “And this, gentlemen, my gift to New York.”

(This is part one of a two part blog on the Ramos Gin Fizz. More later this week. Phil Greene will present a seminar on the Ramos at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans July 19-23. Visit the Museum of the American Cocktail on the web.)