Photo: David Vaughn
This delightful cocktails is super easy to make consisting of all equal parts. It is the perfect combination of tart, sweet and pungent.
Last Word
Ingredients
3/4 oz gin
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz lime juice
garnish: brandied cherry
Method
Combine all ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and double strain into coupe.
GLASS: COUPE
History
While largely referred to as a prohibition era cocktail, this drink was actually discovered in 1916 on the Detroit Athletic Club menu. It was the most expensive drink on the menu selling for 35 cents. The popular vaudevillian monologist (similar to todays stand up comedian) Frank Fogarty is responsible for spreading the cocktail to New York. Though not a bartender, he is generally credited for inventing the cocktail.
After WWII, the cocktail basically disappeared and until 2004 when Murray Stenson of Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle found it in Ted Saucier’s 1951 cocktail book Bottoms Up!. The drink became a cult hit in Seattle and Oregon and quickly gained popularity all over the country.
Variations
This drink’s origins trace back to the Detroit Athletic Club during prohibition using bathtub gin. Bathtub gin was a popular way of mixing cheap grain alcohol with other ingredients such as juniper berries, glycerin and other flavors to mask the taste. The bathtub was a perfectly sized vessel to mix the alcohol being large enough to supply the demand of customers but small enough to be undetectable by the police. Since flavoring agents varied greatly in bathtub gin, the Last Word varied from one establishment to another. Play around with different gins to find your perfect cocktail! Gin’s range of flavor today is so diverse you can find anything from the traditional London dry style with piney, juniper notes, to super floral or fresh and crisp.
Probably the most popular variation on this cocktail is the Final Word created by Phil Ward at Death & Co. in New York City in 2007. The cocktail replaces gin with rye and substitutes lemon for lime.
Final Word
Ingredients
3/4 oz rye
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz lemon juice
garnish: brandied cherry
Method
Combine all ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and double strain into coupe.
GLASS: COUPE
Recommendation: If you ever find yourself in Seattle, I strongly recommend checking out Zig Zag Cafe for an incredible cocktail experience. Death & Co.’s flagship store in Manhattan won Best American Cocktail Bar and World’s Best Cocktail Menu at Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards in 2010. They now have a location in Denver and Los Angelos and still receives world wide recognition as an industry leader.