Where Is the Great Journalism Cocktail?

And I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

The bartender and reporter assume their natural positions in “While the City Sleeps” (1956).

What we know about pre-Prohibition bartenders, bars and drinks in the United States can generally be ascribed to two kinds of sources. One is the cocktail and bartending manuals written by the bartenders themselves, including volumes by Jerry Thomas, Harry Johnson, William Schmidt, William Boothby, George Kappeler, Jacques Straub, Hugo Ensslin, Harry McElhone and many more. The second is the newspaper accounts about those bartenders written by workaday journalists.

Bartenders and journalists have long enjoyed a close relationship. It’s no secret that, historically, newspapermen liked to drink. They hung out in bars during their off-hours, and often during their on-hours as well. As a general rule, whatever reporters personally experience they eventually write up, justifying their time spent in any given place as research and deciding that whatever activity they happened to observe qualifies as news. This is, I’m convinced, how most 19th-century news stories about the bar business ended up in print.

It follows that journalists have made a hefty contribution to the advancement of mixology. Some reporters were so enmeshed in the drinking world that they left behind actual liquid contributions to the cocktail canon. The Boulevardier was invented by Erskine Gwynne, the publisher and editor of a 1920s Paris magazine that went by the same name. The Old Pal was the work of William “Sparrow” Robertson, a Paris-based sportswriter for the New York Herald. And the Irish coffee was introduced to the American public by Stanton Delaplane, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

And yet, where are the cocktails named in honor of Gwynne, Robertson and Delaplane? Or any of the other journalists who covered the bar scene with dedication and faithfulness. They don’t exist.

Bartenders love to name drinks after people. They’ve been doing it for two centuries. Cocktails, both lasting and evanescent, have been named after actors (Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Mamie Taylor), politicians (McKinley’s Delight, Gin Rickey, Volstead cocktail), boxers (Dempsey), fencers (Lucien Gaudin), aviators (Lindbergh), royalty (Prince of Wales, Princess Mary), novelists (Hemingway Daiquiri, The Fitzgerald), poets (Bobby Burns), painters (Bellini), chefs (Bitter Giuseppe, named for Giuseppe Tentori), chef’s children (Sawyer, named for Wylie Dufresne’s daughter), even everyday barflies (Jasmine, named for a man named Matthew Jasmin who frequented The Townhouse in Emeryville, CA, where the creator of the drink, Paul Harrington, worked). Bartenders even name cocktails after other bartenders (the Winchester, created by Brian Miller and named after Angus Winchester). A few unashamed souls have named drinks after themselves (the Ramos Gin Gizz of Henry Ramos, the Harry’s Pick-Me-Up of Harry McElhone, the Final Ward of Phil Ward).

Journalists haven’t been as lucky. The only journalist I can think of who was memorialized with a drink was Oscar Odd McIntyre, better known by his initials O. O. From the 1910s to his death in 1938, McIntyre was one of the most widely read syndicated columnists in the United States. His dedication to the brass rail is illustrated by his role as co-founder—with Harry McElhone, the owner of the famous Harry’s New York Bar in Paris—of the jokey International Bar Flies fraternity. He was, in fact, President of the IBF. For his bibulous efforts, he was honored with the Odd McIntyre cocktail, which is made of brandy, Cointreau, Kina Lillet and lemon juice.

There is a fairly well known cocktail that goes by the generic handle of the Journalist. But, as if to rub salt in the wounds of all tippling ink-stained wretches, the Journalist is not a good drink. It is essentially a perfect gin Martini—meaning the vermouth portion is split between sweet and dry—with small amounts of lemon juice, curaçao and Angostura bitters thrown in. I’ve long held out the hope that some enterprising mixologist might take up this flawed cocktail and improve upon it. I’m still waiting. As it stands, you couldn’t pay this Journalist to drink a Journalist.

There is one bartender who returned the attention reporters paid him in kind. This was William Schmidt, perhaps the most famous bartender in American in the late 19th century, and the author of the 1891 book The Flowing Bowl. Schmidt worked in downtown Manhattan near Park Row, also known then as Newspaper Row because the street was home to nearly every newspaper in the city, all lined up next to each other and directly facing their mutual adversary, City Hall.

The journalists of Park Row devoted columns of ink to Schmidt and his barroom wisdom. Schmidt returned the favor by creating and naming cocktails after the newspapers they that paid their salaries. The Flowing Bowl includes drinks named after the New York Herald, World, Sun and Evening Sun. There is also a drink called The Correspondent.

There’s one problem. You can’t make them.

Oh, you can try. But you would probably fail. Schmidt’s newspaper cocktails are opulent, over-the-top concoctions, so florid in composition as to be near ridiculous. Consider the recipe for the New York Herald:

• 2 eggs

• The juice of one orange

• A little pineapple juice

• 1 bar spoon of sugar

• A drink of fine brandy

• 1 pony of kirschwasser

• 1/2 pony of curacao

• 1/2 pony of maraschino liqueur

• 1/2 pony of creme de rose

• 2 dashes Benedictine

• 2 dashes creme de cacao

• A claret glass of pure cream

I mean, seriously. The above, by the way, is all topped with an egg-white foam beaten, as Schmidt calls it, “in the form of frozen snow.”

Schmidt also adds that “This is intended as an evening drink, only on special occasions.” No kidding.

About that creme de rose—Schmidt loved that stuff. It is featured in nearly two dozen recipes in his book, including nearly all the newspaper drinks. That is a shame, because creme de rose is nearly impossible to find today. Giffard and Combier make a version, but good luck finding it.

Nonetheless, I recently resolved to make at least one of Schmidt’s newspaper drinks. I was curious whether he had been doing right by the journos who bent an elbow at his bar. I settled on the least ludicrous of the melanges, the Evening Sun. It is made of lemon juice, sugar, brandy, green Chartreuse, creme de rose and two egg whites, and topped with Champagne. Could work. So, a kind of Improved Brandy Sour Royale. (After calling ten liquor stores in my neighborhood, I finally found one that carried creme de rose. It was the Giffard brand.)

Well, I owe William Schmidt a debt of thanks. He created a beautiful drink for the fine working people of The Evening Sun. As you can imagine from the list of ingredients, the cocktail has a luxurious flavor to it, one that is softened by the egg whites. And the float of Champagne provokes a wonderful separation of liquids, resulting in a beautifully thick head on the cocktail. One feels like a king drinking it. It is perhaps too luxe a drink for the down-and-dirty profession of daily journalism, but I’ll take it.

So, where is our Schmidt today? What bartender or bar owner tips his cap to the people of the press? The only one I can think of who regularly creates journalist-theme cocktails is Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, the owner of Latitude 29, a tropical bar in New Orleans. He has invented at least two original cocktails named after drink journalists: the U.S.S. Wondrich, named after cocktail historian David Wondrich; and the Mr. Curtis, named after drinks writer Wayne Curtis.

I suspect, however, that this is because Berry began his bar career as a writer himself.

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The Evening Sun, one of several cocktails bartender William Schmidt named after New York newspapers.

The Evening Sun

William Schmidt, The Flowing Bowl, 1891

For this drink, I am using the converted measurements found in Martin’s Index, a historical cocktail app which I consult often and which I highly recommend. (Schmidt dealt in “drinks” and ponys.”) Schmidt instructed to fill the glasses with the Champagne before straining the mixture into them, but I found adding the Champagne last resulted in a larger head. Schmidt also said the below recipe should serve four people. He was right about that.

• 2 ounces lemon juice

• 2 bar spoons superfine sugar

• 2 ounces brandy

• 1 ounce green Chartreuse

• 1/2 ounce creme de rose

• 2 egg whites

• Champagne

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with crushed ices. Shake until chilled, about 15 seconds. Strain into a chilled champagne glass. Fill with chilled Champagne

Mr. Curtis

Jeff Berry, Latitude 29, New Orleans, 2014

• 1 ¼ ounces Demerara rum (Berry uses El Dorado 8-year-old)

• 1 ounce. chai syrup*

• 1 ounce fresh lime juice

• ¾ ounce Plantation O.F.T.D. Overproof rum
  

Shake all ingredients with ice, then strain into chilled glass and garnish with lime wedge.

*Chai Syrup: In a saucepan, combine 32 oz. (1 carton) of liquid chai concentrate with 20 oz. of gold turbinado or demerara sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly, then reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for two minutes. Remove from the heat, let cool, and bottle. Keep refrigerated for up to twp weeks.

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Odds and Ends…

Clover Club’s Whole Fried Branzino for Two, a whole fish served with lettuce wraps, pickled radishes, herbs, garlic Sriracha and green garlic vinaigrette, is one of the best bar dishes currently being served in New York… Veronika has reopened inside the second floor of the Photografiska museum in New York. Eric Alperin (The Varnish) is in charge of the beverage program. There are three variations each on the Pisco Sour and Espresso Martini, as well as a Sloe Gin Fizz, which is described as “your Mom’s White Claw”… Daniel May opened a cocktail bar named Dabney & Co. in the heart of Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is the first ever Black-owned and operated cocktail lounge in the city… Fort Defiance, the Brooklyn cocktail bar and restaurant, has finally reopened in its new location on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. For now, hours are 5 pm til late on Thursday through Sunday. Brunch hours will arrive soon. Chef Allie Gassaway, formerly of Mission Chinese, to helm the kitchen… The Porchlight Book Club series will continue on June 21 with Mason Hereford, the James Beard Award-nominated Chef-Owner of Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans, who recently put out a cookbook… Popina, the Brooklyn restaurant with Italian leanings, has a “Roman Happy Hour” Monday through Thursday, form 5 to 6 p.m. In that hour, you can order any of the four Roman mainstay pasta dishes: Amatriciana, Carbonara, Gricia and Cacio e Pepe.

The Whole Fried Branzino for Two at Clove Club.