Endangered Cocktail of the Month

Most Scotch fans balk at the idea of mixing their beloved “water of life” with anything but, well, a little water.  We LUPEC ladies know a bit better.  A whole world of delicious whisky cocktails awaits the adventurous spirit.  Proud among these is the Mamie Taylor, a great old highball named for the famous Broadway star.  It was the drink-du-moment for a few fleeting years around the turn of the 2Oth century and consumed by the thousands in the hot summer of 19OO.  The drink figured prominently in popular culture, writes Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: “Poems were written about the drink, jokes were told, and articles were written using Mamie to illustrate au courant sophistication.”  Though it’s a simple beverage composed of inexpensive ingredients, bars were nevertheless able to charge exorbitant prices given the drink’s popularity and high demand.  It became “synonymous with ‘swank refreshment’ until 192O – and Prohibition.”  The Mamie enjoyed a brief comeback in the ’4Os and was a predecessor to vodka’s gateway cocktail, the Moscow Mule.  Let’s bring Mamie back again.