The Perfect Cocktail
My husband and I have a special cocktail. It’s a martini-style drink that we make with equal parts gin, two types of vermouth, and a lemon twist. I don’t remember exactly when we came up with this recipe, but I do know that we make it several times a week and we consider it “our” drink. We think of it like the goldilocks of cocktails – not sweet, not too dry, but just right. And low enough in alcohol that a second is always welcome. To us, it is the perfect cocktail.
However, while researching my book, The Cocktail Parlor, I recently discovered that this cocktail is not, in fact, “ours”. As so often proves to be the case with great drinks, it’s been around quite a long time – at least a century and a quarter, in fact. Even more serendipitously, the drink was – and is – already known as The Perfect Cocktail.
“You will soon see wherein lies its perfection”, wrote Amy Lyman Phillips in her 1906 book, A Bachelor’s Cupboard, the earliest source I have found for the recipe. In the book she reveals that it’s “A new cocktail served in New York at Sherry’s and Martin’s and the Café des Ambassadeurs” [1].
The restaurant scene in New York City was buzzing at the turn of the twentieth century when Amy wrote A Bachelor’s Cupboard. Hotspots such as Delmonico’s, famous since the civil war, and archrival Sherry’s were already known the world over for hosting Presidents and for serving up signature dishes such as Lobster Newburg, Baked Alaska, and Chicken à la Keene to the city’s wealthy elites. However, a whole host of new restaurants were also emerging around this time, those that catered to an altogether more bohemian crowd – artists, designers, journalists, and aristocrats that would later become known collectively as “Café Society”. Such spots as Café Martin, Café des Beaux Artes, and Café des Ambassadeurs were the places to see and be seen, and were serving up drinks like the Perfect Cocktail and other delights to a “loyal and liberal patronage.” [2]
As I discuss in Chapter Three of The Cocktail Parlor, the turn of the twentieth century was a hugely important era socially and politically for women. For the first time, women were fighting to hold their own space in public life, and nowhere was this more evident than their growing presence in restaurants. A number of New York City venues became the catalysts for women’s social progression. Delmonico’s, for example, had been the first restaurant in 1868 to allow women to dine privately for lunch together. By the turn of the century, many restaurants were taking it even further. For example, in 1907 Café Martin became the first restaurant to allow women to smoke [3], and in 1911 Café des Beaux Artes was the first to open a bar that was solely for women drinkers where, in a reversal of gender roles, men could only enter if accompanied by a lady [4].
Lunch was one of the principle occasions where it was socially acceptable for a lady to dine in public without a male chaperone in the early 1900s. Women gathered for lunch in the all-female dining rooms of hotels and restaurants as well as in more casual venues, such as the cafeterias of department stores and the growing number of women-run tea rooms. In 1904, an article in the New York Times, with the headline “The Maid and the Menu: Can a woman order dinner?” discussed the growing influence of female diners on New York City’s restaurant scene. In response to the question posed by the article, John B. Martin, co-owner of the trendy Café Martin, confirmed that yes, “women know as well how to order, or better than men.” However, Mr Martin also commented that women brought their own tastes to restaurants ordering differently from their husbands, observing “as a rule [women] do not like game dinners; they will take quail or partridge, but they do not care for the red meat and the game where the knife draws blood, and they will not order a canvasback turtle as a man would do.” [5]
“Can a woman order dinner?”
asked the New York Times in 1904
Source: New York Times
However, it was not only in the food menu where women were asserting themselves, but increasingly also the drinks. As Mr Martin went on, “[women] would be likely to have more sweets and would take different wines, a mild cocktail or a sweet wine like Chateau Yquem, while a man would take a Rhine wine”.
The American custom of taking a cocktail right before dinner was just starting to solidify around this time. As Amy Lyman Phillips observed in A Bachelor’s Cupboard, “The cocktail is the national aperitif of America – Manhattan or Martini being most in favor”. However, the etiquette of the pre-dinner cocktail, for women especially, was still somewhat in flux. Indeed, another dining guide from the New York Times in 1906 cautioned that “it is bad form at a dinner in a private house to have these refreshers served, and more than bad form to partake of them at restaurants. At least this is what the women think, and, besides, they are supposed to be fattening.” [6]
However, that cocktails were being consumed before lunch or dinner is well documented from restaurant menus of this era. Indeed, the same Times article goes on to concede that “sometimes an exception may be made [to the cocktail as aperitif] and if so there is no cocktail more delicate than a Martini made of very dry gin and two kinds of vermouth, the French and the Italian” – in other words, the Perfect Cocktail. By all accounts this light sipping martini-style aperitif took off with women and was one of the first cocktails to be openly consumed by both men and women when out in public. Another, similar aperitif style cocktail known as the Zaza Cocktail, made with gin and Dubbonet, was also popular.
The Café Martin menu featuring the popular Zaza Cocktail with gin and Dubbonet, c.1901
Source: New York Public Library
Amy Lyman Phillips shares the recipe for the Perfect Cocktail in her chapter on drinks. It is as described in the earlier New York Times article of 1904 and made with equal parts gin, Italian vermouth, and French vermouth. This same recipe then appears some thirteen years later in Hugo Ensslin’s bartending guide, Recipes for Mixed Drinks, considered the last important bartending guide to be published before Prohibition. Still today, in modern mixology the term “perfect” has come to refer to the balance of both sweet and dry styles of vermouth in a cocktail, be that a Martini, Manhattan, Negroni, or any other.
My husband and I have played around with the Perfect recipe quite a bit – you could say we’ve “perfected” it. Instead of red vermouth we sometimes like to use a cordial style gin (such as Pomp & Whimsy Gin Liqueur, of course), and if that is not available we will use a sweet white aperitif such as Dubbonet, Lillet Blanc, or even a rosé vermouth. For the dry we usually go with a Dolin Extra Dry or Noilly Prat Original Dry. The original recipe calls for the drink to be served frappé with a slice of orange as garnish; ours is always served up with a twist of lemon. Taking the perfection a step further, if we’re feeling fancy we might then sprinkle a dash of lavender or lemon bitters over the top of the drink for some additional aromatics.
And as it turns out, we are not alone in our love of this so-called perfect cocktail. For I have since discovered that other famous female imbibers also have their own interpretations of this drink. For example, Julia Child had a signature cocktail she called Ivan’s Aperitif (named after her brother-in-law), which featured a jigger each of sweet and dry white vermouth and half an ounce of gin. Whereas the late Queen of England, Elizabeth II, was said to favor the Zaza made with 1 part gin and 2 parts Dubbonet.
The Perfect Cocktail inspires good company, indeed!
The Perfect Cocktail
Amy Lyman Phillips
A Bachelor’s Cupboard, 1906
Mix one part Italian vermouth, one part French vermouth, and one part Gordon gin. Add a slice of orange, and frappé. You will soon see wherein lies its perfection.
RECIPE:
THE PERFECT COCKTAIL
Ingredients
Instructions
- Add the liquors to a mixing glass with ice and stir until well chilled
- Strain into a small martini glass or coupe
- Twist the lemon peel over the top of the drink to release its oils and use as garnish
- For added aromatics sprinkle a few drops of lavender bitters on the surface of the drink
SOURCES:
[1] Phillips, Amy Lyman; A Bachelors Cupboard: Containing Crumbs Culled from the Cupboards of the Great Unwedded; John W. Luce & Company (Boston, MA); 1906
[2] “Famous American Restaurants and Some of the Delicacies for which they are Noted”; Good Housekeeping (New York, NY); Jan 1909
[3] https://www.theamericanmenu.com/2012/02/the-cafe-martin.html
[4] “Drinks Chosen For Color, Not Taste, At Women’s Bar”; New York Times (New York, NY), October 12, 1913
[5] “The Maid and the Menu”; New York Times (New York, NY), October 30, 1904
[6] “Covers for Two: A Gastronomic Study”; New York Times (New York, NY); September 2, 1906