The Alexander Cocktail

The Alexander Cocktail , with gin or brandy, crème de cacao and heavy cream, is notable for pioneering the use of cream as a cocktail ingredient. First appearing in print in the United States in 1914 (there was an earlier, more conventional drink of the same name with rye and Bénédictine), the Alexander was not the first cocktail to use cream, with which “the Only William” had already experimented in the 1890s. See Schmidt, William. It was, however, certainly the first to gain a broad popularity both in the United States and in Europe (it is found there by the early 1920s), and it would prove both influential and controversial in equal parts. The drink’s origins are much disputed, but the best-supported claim traces it to Rector’s, one of New York City’s “lobster palaces,” where bar manager Troy Alexander created it for some officials of the Lackawanna Railroad, then famous for its advertising campaign featuring “Phoebe Snow,” a (fictional) young lady who could ride the railroad’s trains in a spotless white gown due to its use of smokeless coal. Alexander therefore created a drink that was perfectly white. The year is uncertain, but he was at Rector’s on and off from at least 1904 until it closed in 1913. The formula seems to have gotten into the wild only loosely attached to the name, as it is found in Hugo Ensslin’s invaluable 1916 compendium of what they were drinking in New York under three different names, including also the “Panama” (making it one of several drinks circulating under that name) and the “Stonewall Jackson.”

The Alexander was not universally beloved. Some objected to the gin: Harry MacElhone, for one, who in his 1922 ABC of mixing cocktails replaced it with brandy. See MacElhone, Harry. This version, too, would become quite popular. Most, however, objected to the crème de cacao and the cream, which together earned the Alexander the reputation as a drink for, as one 1930 American drink guide put it, “tender young things, who have just been taken off stick candy.” In 1934, Esquire magazine listed it as number two in its list of the “ten worst cocktails” of the year. Nonetheless the Alexander did not go away, at least not the brandy version, which survived long enough as a popular drink for Jack Lemmon to get Lee Remick hooked on alcohol with them in the 1962 film Days of Wine and Roses and to be one of the mainstays of the fern bar. Only with the cocktail revival of the twenty-first century did its popularity finally fade, despite its impeccable pre-Prohibition pedigree.

Recipe: Shake 30 ml ea. London dry gin or brandy, white crème de cacao, and heavy cream. Strain and serve up. For a Brandy Alexander, grate nutmeg on top.

Elliott, Virginia, and Phil D. Strong. Shake ‘Em Up: A Manual of Polite Drinking. N.p.: Brewer & Warren, 1930.

Ensslin, Hugo R. Recipes for Mixed Drinks. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 1916.

Montague, Harry. The Up-to-Date Bartenders’ Guide. In New Bartender’s Guide … 2 Books in One. Baltimore: I & M Ottenheimer, 1914.

Winchell, Walter. “Your Broadway and mine” (syndicated column), March 22, 1929.

By: David Wondrich