Tuxedo
A classic martini cocktail, there are multiple recipes of it and it’s all on the bartender and what they serve to you, unless you know your stuff. The cocktail earned its name because of a very exclusive private country club in New York. This club was in a gated estate near Tuxedo Park some 65 kilometres away from New York. You wouldn't be wrong to make the assumption that the cocktail indeed earned its name thanks to a certain piece of clothing. This club also birthed the tuxedo jacket, not exactly the clothing, but the name from where it was made popular across the US.
As for the black tie dinner dress code, it's as old as the mid-1800s when England’s Edward VII (then the Prince of Wales) had a jacket made for him to replace his white-tie dress, a trend common at parties during that era. Henry Poole & Co. was tasked with the making of the jacket that soon became a custom with the prince introducing a rich New York fellow to his tailor who sewed him his tuxedo. Soon, it became a trend at the club back in the US as the members started copying him.
As for the cocktail, documentation points to Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual published in 1900. Before that the same person mixed numerous martinis and in his Bartenders' Manual he had penned down a recipe for a martini. It is said that the tuxedo cocktail is based on the Fifty-Fifty dry martini that was extremely popular in the 1800s and 1900s. This version over the years changed hands to give birth to different recipes, which in turn gave birth to the tuxedo and its varieties. However, there are 5 distinct recipes for this cocktail but the original recipe has Old Tom gin, dry vermouth, 2 dashes of maraschino and a dash of absinthe, then 2-3 dashes of orange bitters. The others were slight variations:
- Tuxedo No. 1: Features 1:1 dry gin and dry vermouth plus absinthe and lemon peel.
- Tuxedo No. 2: Features 1:1 dry gin and dry vermouth, maraschino, absinthe and orange bitters.
- Tuxedo No. 3: If you love gin then you'll love this version. It features a 2:1 ratio of dry gin and dry vermouth, sherry, absinthe, maraschino and bitters.
- Tuxedo No. 4: Vermouth bids adieu in this version with a 2:1 of dry gin and dry sherry with a dash of orange bitters.
Tuxedo number 2 is a Marguerite cocktail that was also one of the many recipes featured in Johnson's book. This deserved a special mention because it was one of the few oldest recipes known to the public for Marguerite.
Ingredients
Method
-Add ice cubes into a mixing glass and mix all the ingredients well.
-Once stirred well, strain into a chilled martini glass.
-Add a cherry and twist a lemon peel on the cocktail and serve.
