The Last Word

The Last Word is a pre-Prohibition-era concoction composed of equal parts dry gin, maraschino liqueur, Chartreuse, and lime juice. The drink first appears in print in an issue of the Detroit Athletic Club News in 1916, where it is listed on a menu, selling for (a high) 35 cents. The recipe was published forty-five years later in Ted Saucier’s racy cocktail book Bottoms Up! (1951), where an unnamed source from the Detroit Athletic Club writes: “This cocktail was introduced around here about thirty 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.” See Saucier, Ted. Fogarty could have introduced the drink to the area when he performed in Detroit in 1915, just after the club was opened to the public, but there is no other print source linking Fogarty to the Last Word.

The Last Word was largely forgotten until 2003, when bartender Murray Stenson included the drink on the menu at the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, Washington. See Stenson, Murray. Over the next few years, the Last Word spread across the country and around the world; knowledge of the drink (and its then-obscure ingredients, maraschino liqueur and Chartreuse) signified a serious interest in the mixological arts. The drink is remarkable for its pleasing four-part symmetry and the unexpected harmony of its assertive ingredients. Its formula has inspired scores of new cocktail recipes, notably the Final Ward by Phil Ward and the Naked and Famous by Joaquin Simo.

Recipe: Shake 30 ml each dry gin, maraschino liqueur, Chartreuse, and lime juice with ice, and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass.

See also Chartreuse; gin; and maraschino.

Saucier, Ted. Bottoms Up. New York: Greystone, 1951.

By: St. John Frizell