The Alexander Cocktail

[ThinkingBartender]

Now I know that there are some people who believe that the Alexander was originally made with Gin, and then later on, changed to Brandy, but what facts is this opinion based on?

Other questions that I am wondering are:

Was the Alexander originally made by Cato Alexander? Hence the name?

What kind of Gin was originally meant? London Dry or Hollands?

Cheers!

George

[jazzyjeff]

I don't know who the creator of this cocktail is nor how it got its name but found some information which may be useful from various books.

It seems that the gin used is just regular dry gin, I have seen no mention of any other; "Old Waldorf Bar Days", "The Savoy Cocktail Book" and "The Artistry of Mixing Drinks" are all in agreement on this.

David Embury and Jack Townsend & Tom Moore McBride both seem to believe that gin was originally the base for the Alexander.

Embury goes on to state "If brandy is substituted for gin, this drink becomes a Brandy Alexander or Panama".

Jack Townsend & Tom Moore McBride back up the Panama naming, "Correctly, the Brandy Alexander is a Panama Cocktail, but it isn't often called that."

Cheers

Jeff

[ThinkingBartender]

I don't know who the creator of this cocktail is nor how it got its name but found some information which may be useful from various books.

It seems that the gin used is just regular dry gin, I have seen no mention of any other; "Old Waldorf Bar Days", "The Savoy Cocktail Book" and "The Artistry of Mixing Drinks" are all in agreement on this.

David Embury and Jack Townsend & Tom Moore McBride both seem to believe that gin was originally the base for the Alexander.

Embury goes on to state "If brandy is substituted for gin, this drink becomes a Brandy Alexander or Panama".

Jack Townsend & Tom Moore McBride back up the Panama naming, "Correctly, the Brandy Alexander is a Panama Cocktail, but it isn't often called that."

Cheers

Jeff

←

Well, I would assume that David Embury got his version from Frank Meier; Either from his book or from meeting him personally (which I think he did).

The Gin version of the Alexander is quite placid, compared with the Brandy version.

[ThinkingBartender]

Has anyone heard of a Lady Alexander?

"LADY ALEXANDER One-half sloe gin, One-quarter crème de cacao The white of an egg One dash of angostura bitters."

I found the reference in a book called "Graduate work in the South", by Charles Wooten Pipkin, 1939.

Reno Evening Gazette, Nov 21, 1940

Lady Alexander: One-half sloe gin, one-quarter creme de cacao, the white of an egg and a dash of Angostura bitters.

Cheers!

George

Edited February 23, 2007 by ThinkingBartender (log)

[fatdeko]

George,

I wish that you would get over your supposed (or real) phobia/allergy to (actual) books.

When you say:

"I found the reference in a book called "Graduate work in the South", by Charles Wooten Pipkin, 1939. "

I simply don't believe you. I suspect that you found a citation to said book on an online database.

It's not the same thing.

I have deep suspicions whether or not the book is fiction or non-fiction or even if its bonafides viz. drink can even be established. It may well be another treatise on the American education system masquerading as a parable, for all we know.

Anyone who handles, collects, reads or deals in books of the era can show you that the "Alexander" is a pre-cursor to the "Brandy Alexander". It's even 'nomenclaturaly' apparent. (In a Lineaen sorta way, that is).

That the Brandy Alexander is a better tasting drink than it's Gin based fore-father and therefore had to carry the weight of the family name on his shoulders, is neither here nor there. The "Alexander" was a gin based drink and the "Brandy Alexander" came after.

"Come on along" and "Come on and Hear" is another Alexander story, but you'll have to Google Broadway and Berlin to get there.

That the Alexanders were born in the weird mixological epoch of Prohibition is probably a given. But the story of how the bastard Alexander, the "brandy" Alexander, rose to head the family may be a tale worth telling. I'm not the one to tell it, and certainly not at this hour.

I will drop this tidbit, however: The Old Mr. Boston guides considered the "Brandy" Alexander to be of such bastard stock that "Alexander #2" was how he was referred to from 1941 through 1972--and possibly later. (There is a gap between '72 and '84 in my library)

Oddly, prior to 1941, Mr. Boston's "Alexander #2" consisted of Cream, Cacao and Apricot Nectar. So not only was the Brandy Alexander a bastard cousin, he was given a hand-me-down name as well.

And for what it's worth:

Noble Experiments (1930) by Judge Jr lists an Alexander Cocktail but not a Brandy Alexander. Same goes for Here's How(1933) by George Lurie.

When my headache goes away, I'll try to find more.

myers

PS> To see Charles Wooten Pipkin's other contributions to cocktail history, here's an Amazon syllabus:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...Wooten%20Pipkin

Edited February 23, 2007 by fatdeko (log)

[ThinkingBartender]

Stanford University, Yale University, and many other great American institutions are opening their library catalogues to companies like Google, so that their content may be digitised. This is because the future is digital, and the only thing that is truly important is the content of those books, not their actual physical forms.

I mentioned the Lady Alexander on a whim, because I thought it was an interesting drink; I never said that it was automatically an Alexander, purely because it has the same name in its title. Though I did think that Sloe Gin would make a more interesting Alexander thats for sure

My entire reason for asking about the origins of the Alexander, and whether it was truly a gin based drink to begin with, derives purely from the fact that I usually only read secondary/ tertiary sources for this "fact". All I am asking is, is it really true?

The world of Cocktails and bartending is full of mistakes, and intentional mis-truths, so it would be nice to clarify the information, before I go around telling people that "the alexander was originally gin".

I am not the only person who questions whether the Alexander was originally gin; Even Drinkboy has the Alexander listed as a Brandy drink, and how many good cocktail books does he have? A lot more than me or google, thats for sure

Thanks for the excerpts.

When it comes to reading books, I think it was Schopenhauer who said: "Forever reading, never to be read".

Cheers!

George

[fatdeko]

When it comes to reading books, I think it was Schopenhauer who said: "Forever reading, never to be read".

Cheers!

George

←

My point in a nutshell:

That wasn't Schopenhauer, but rather Schopenhauer quoting Alexander Pope's Dunciad.

His indictment wasn't against reading books, per se, but bookishness as a substitute for experience.

myers

Edited February 23, 2007 by fatdeko (log)

[Splificator]

Ooh, snap!

The Alexander had nothing whatever to do with Cato Alexander--creme de cacao was pretty much unknown in the early 1800s, at least in these United States, as were iced cocktails and fancy mixtures of cream, booze and liqueurs.

A quick whip through the professional literature fails to disclose any trace of the drink before the 1910s, at which point we are presented with not one but two Alexanders (generally a sign that the drink's name is derived from something floating around in the cultural atmosphere; cf the three different Aviations circulating at the same time, or the Shaved Brittneys you can no doubt order in any college bar). In this case, I strongly suspect theat Mr. Myers has it right and it was named after the leader of the bestest band what am.

As for the origins, etc. I checked four up-to-date books from the 1910s, two from San Francisco and two from New York. The drink is not found in those by San Franciscans Bill Boothby and Ernest P. Rawling. An Alexander that's 3/4 rye and 1/4 Benedictine, with an orange twist, turns up in Jacques Straub (I'd call that a Frisco, myself). Hugo Ensslin's 1915 Recipes for Mixed Drinks offers the following:

"Alexander Cocktail

1/3 El Bart gin [a sponsor--DW]

1/3 Creme de Cocoa

1/3 Sweet Cream

Shake well in a mixing glass with cracked ice, strain and serve."

So. A New York drink of the 1910s? That's the way the evidence points, anyway (it's indicative that Harry MacElhone, who worked at the Plaza before the war, includes it in the first edition of his ABCs.

As for the Panama. I don't have time to dig into it now, but originally it was a mixture of whiskey or brandy and quinine (as taken by the canal diggers) or a plain Whiskey Cocktail with a dash of tabasco (I once served these at an event to go along with a plate of chef Zak Pelaccio's awesome Pork Belly Fries; rock & roll).

I don't recall if the Panama with brandy, cream and creme de cacao turns up before Prohibition; I'll look into it when I get a chance.

[ThinkingBartender]

Okay, so its Alexander's Ragtime Band, with the Gin.