Ceci n’est pas une Cosmopolitan.

Girly-looking, manly-named!

Here we have a Tuxedo Martini. It is of a piece with the Stork Club, a cocktail I blogged a few weeks back, in that both were christened after the New York City hotspots where they were invented. Allow me to quote my ever-dogeared copy of Difford’s Encyclopedia of Cocktails:

“Created at the Tuxedo Club, New York, circa 1885. A year later this was the birthplace of the tuxedo, when a tobacco magnate, Griswold Lorillard, wore the first ever tailless dinner jacket and named the style after the club.”

A few things:

- Griswold. Lorillard. That’s like National Lampoon’s Vacation + Gilmore Girls-ish surname somehow = The hoity-toitiest moniker EVER. Clearly, Griz did not just invent the tuxedo, but also the monocle and the spat.

- Having said that, there is apparently some dispute as to the veracity of that whole sartorial yarn.

- Invented in 1885! That is one seriously ancient cocktail. By comparison, the Stork Club (the business, not the drink) didn’t even open until 1929. This makes me think of Midnight in Paris, when modern-day Owen Wilson and Roaring 20s-era Marion Cotillard time-travel back even further to the Belle Epoque. The Tuxedo is one ultra-hyper-meta nostalgic tipple, is what I’m saying. And also, as I’ve said before, a perfectly imagined era of yore is a perfectly good reason to prepare oneself a cocktail.

So how’s it taste?

The Tuxedo’s got an alcohol-y middle to its flavor profile, as any wet martini is wont to have. Of course, the fact that my brain keeps processing its visuals and telling me it’s a Cosmo only adds to that wobbliness. The finish, however, is the bomb, with an intruguing and not-at-all-over-the-top sweetness to it.

The Tuxedo Martini

(This recipe’s kinda like a mash-up between the one in Difford’s and the one in my Big Book of Martinis for Moms)

2 ounces vodka or dry gin

1 1/2 ounces Martini & Rossi dry vermouth

1/2 teaspoon Luxardo

4 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

Lemon twist, to garnish

Combine all liquid ingredients in an ice-filled mixing glass and mix briskly with a bar spoon for about a minute. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Run the pithy side of your twist along the lip of your glass, then use it to garnish.

Tasting Notes

Maybe some folks would have my head for suggesting that this cocktail could be made with either vodka or gin. My feeling is, the other ingredients are quite potent and powerful, such that if vodka’s your jam, or it’s all you have on hand, etc., it’s going to suffice.

Difford, by the by, uses Tio Pepe fine sherry instead of Luxardo in his recipe, as well as Angostura orange bitters instead of Peychaud’s.