Think you know your Gibsons from your Sidecars? The Downtime Cocktail Quiz
Eric Felten
1) Which of these is the odd man out?
Sam Ward Joe Rickey William Henry Harrison Levi Morton
2) One of these things is not like the others. Which?
Sidecar Margarita White Lady Pink Lady
3) Which is the Odd Man Out?
Foolish Cocktail Gibson Cocktail Martini Cocktail Montpelier Cocktail
4) One of these things is not like the others. Which?
Chilton Rusty Nail Tom Collins Bizzy Izzy
If you got any of these right, please reward yourself by making one of the drinks in question. Cheers!
ANSWERS:
All four were prominent Washington figures with boozy bona fides. Sam Ward was a lobbyist and gourmand who influenced Washington through his highly regarded dinner parties. Joe Rickey also plied the lobbyist’s trade, though in rather shabbier surroundings — a political dive bar called Shoomaker’s. Harrison was, for a very short time, president of the United States. Levi Morton was vice president under a different Harrison — Benjamin. Morton outraged prohibitionists by owning a Washington hotel with a bar. Morton is the odd man out in this group. Ward, Rickey, and Harrison all had popular drinks named after them. The “Sam Ward” is made of lemons and Chartreuse; the Rickey was originally just whiskey with soda water and later morphed into a highball of gin, lime juice, sugar, and fizzy water. William Henry Harrison was known to favor cider and was honored with a mixed drink of egg, hard cider, and sugar shaken with ice until it was nice and frothy. This is something of a trick question. Put “white lady” and “pink lady” together in a list, and one is inclined to think we have a grouping of “lady drinks.” Perhaps margarita, being a woman’s name and a type of daisy, is a yellow lady of sorts and thus part of the grouping. But no, it is the sidecar that is the organizing principle that makes three of these four drinks cousins. The sidecar is brandy, lemon juice, and Cointreau served in a glass with a sugared rim; the margarita is tequila, lime juice, and Cointreau served in a glass with a salted rim. And just as you can think of the margarita as a tequila sidecar, you can think of the white lady as a gin version — gin, lemon juice, and Cointreau. Of this group, the martini is the odd man out. I would be surprised to find many Downtime readers who didn’t know that a Gibson is an exceedingly dry gin martini distinguished by its garnish — the pickled “pearl” or “cocktail” onion. The Montpelier cocktail is a somewhat less-dry Gibson. The foolish cocktail is one of the few other cocktails garnished with onion, but not, however, a pickled pearl olive. The foolish cocktail was served over a century ago at the Riggs House hotel in Washington, D.C., and it consisted of a martini with a thinly sliced disc of fresh onion floating on top. Thus we have a collection of onion-decorated (some would say onion-desecrated) martinis. As such, the martini not garnished with an onion is the odd man out. Three of these are “highballs” — tall drinks with ice and carbonated. The Tom Collins is one of the essential highballs; the Chilton is a tall fizzy cooler of vodka, lemon juice, and soda on ice, a drink popular in West Texas. A century ago, a “Bizzy Izzy” was what one called a fellow who was always chasing get-rich-quick schemes. The type was honored in a highball made with equal parts rye whiskey and pale sherry, a little lemon juice, and some sugar. The odd man out is the rusty nail, a short drink without soda water.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?