The Last Word - Prohibition-era cocktail that’s a Hong Kong after-dinner drink
Steakhouse Morton’s of Chicago revives a century-old, gin-based palate cleanser as an alternative to end-of-night cognac or whisky, and its version is stirred, not shaken. One is enough
Some classic cocktails have a loyal following that never deserts them. The Dry Martini may go in and out of fashion, but it has never gone out of style.
Others have enjoyed a period of popularity before disappearing for decades, to be rediscovered this century by bartenders who like to pore over old cocktail recipe books. One example of this is The Last Word, which celebrates its centenary this year.
The first record of the drink is to be found on a 1916 drinks list of the Detroit Athletic Club in Detroit, Michigan, and like many others it became popular during the Prohibition era because it could be made with bathtub gin.
The other ingredients are fresh lime juice, maraschino liqueur and green Chartreuse.
The Last Word seems to have fallen out of favour at some point after the Prohibition years, and is little documented, but the recipe is recorded in Bottoms Up, a 1951 cocktail book by Ted Saucier who worked at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.
“This cocktail was introduced around here about 30 years ago by Frank Fogarty, who was very well known in vaudeville. He was called the ‘Dublin Minstrel,’ and was a very fine monologue artist,” wrote Saucier.