Pink Lady (cocktail)

For the drug cocktail, see Pink lady (medicine). For other uses, see Pink Lady (disambiguation).
Pink Lady
Type Cocktail
Primary alcohol by volume
Served Straight up; without ice
Standard garnish

Cherry

Standard drinkware
Cocktail glass
Commonly used ingredients
Preparation Shake ingredients very well with ice and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

The Pink Lady is a classic gin-based cocktail with a long history. Its pink color is due to adding grenadine.

Basic recipe and variations

The exact ingredients for the pink lady vary, but all variations have the use of gin, grenadine and egg white in common.[1] In its most basic form the pink lady consists of just these three ingredients. According to the Royal Cafe Cocktail Book of 1937, it is made with a glass of gin, a tablespoon of grenadine and the white of one egg, shaken and strained into a glass.[2]

Often lemon juice is added to the basic form as well and in that case the Pink Lady is identical to another cocktail called Clover Club. Some authors argue that the "real" or "original" pink lady differs from the Clover Club by adding applejack to mix, which provides the Pink Lady with its own distinct flavour.[3][4]

Another creamier version of the Pink Lady that has been around at least since the 1920s adds sweet cream to the basic form. In New Orleans this version was also known as Pink Shimmy. In some recipes the cream is not added to the basic form but simply replaces the egg white and sometimes lemon juice is added as well.[5]

Usually the ingredients for any of the versions are shaken over ice and after straining it into a glass the cocktail might be garnished with a cherry.[6]

History

Pink Lady
Clover Club

The exact origin of the Pink Lady is not known for sure. Occasionally its invention is attributed to the interior architect and prominent society figure Elsie de Wolfe (1865-1950), but the recipe associated with her nevertheless clearly differs from the common recipes for the Pink Lady.[7] The name of the cocktail itself is sometimes said to be taken from the 1911 Broadway musical by Ivan Caryll of the same name,[8] or named in the honour of its star Hazel Dawn[9][10] who was known as "The Pink Lady".[11] During the prohibition era (1920-1933) the cocktail was already widely known. In those years it was a popular drink at the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans, where it was offered under the name Pink Shimmy as well. Its recipe was due to Armond Schroeder an assistant manager at the club.[12] The popularity of the Pink Lady might partially be explained by the often bad quality of pure gin during the prohibition era. Due to that there was a need to add additional flavours to compensate for the gin's bad taste.[13]

Latest in the 1930s the Pink Lady started to acquire the image of a typical "female" or "girly" drink due to its name and sweet creamy flavor usually associated with a woman's taste in publications like Esquire's Handbook for Hosts (1949). It is said of the Hollywood star and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, that she used to drink a Pink Lady before a meal.[14][15] Subsequently, the cocktail fell out of favour with male cocktail critics, who were put off by its alleged "female" nature.[16] The writer and bartender Jack Townsend speculated in his publication The Bartender's Book (1951) that the very non-threatening appearance of the Pink Lady may have appealed to women who did not have much experience with alcohol.[4] At one point the Pink Lady ended up on Esquire's list of the ten worst cocktails.[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ For gin, grenadine, egg white, see Halley, Tarling/Carter.
    For gin, grenadine, egg white, lemon juice, see Calabrese.
    For gin, grenadine, egg white, lemon juice, applejack, see Giglio/Fink, Naigh, Felten.
    For gin, grenadine, egg white, cream, see Widmer, Scheib Chirico.
    For gin, grenadine, egg white, lemon juice, cream, see White, Chirico
    For gin, grenadine, cream, see Chirico, Randall.
  2. ↑ Tarling/Carter, Halley
  3. ↑ Felten, Giglio/Fink, Naigh
  4. 1 2 A Change in Fortune. The Cocktail Chronicles 2006-3-22 (retrieved 2011-9-15)
  5. ↑ Widmer, Scheib, Chirico, White, Randall
  6. ↑ Calabrese, Giglio/Fink, Chirico, White
  7. ↑ Elsie de Wolfe's concoction, also called Lady Mendl Cocktail, is gin based as well but adds grapefruit juice and Cointreau (see Fehrman/Fehrman)
  8. ↑ Calabrese, White
  9. ↑ Joseph F. Clarke (1977). Pseudonyms. BCA. p. 48.
  10. ↑ Richard Lamparski (1968). Whatever Became Of--?: Second Series. Crown Publishers. p. 100.
  11. ↑ C. Gerald Fraser: Hazel Dawn, Stage Actress, Is Dead at 98. The New York Times, 1988-08-11
  12. ↑ Scheib
  13. 1 2 Chirico
  14. ↑ Eric Felten: This Lady Is Tart in Taste. Wall Street Journal, 21. March 2007
  15. ↑ Felten, Randall
  16. ↑ Felten

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pink Lady (Cocktail).
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.