Bars are putting on the ritz with an old drink: Tuxedo
TUXEDOS are back in style. You’ll spot them all over NewYork, at the Beekman Hotel downtown, at the Grill in the former Four Seasons space, at Flora Bar inside the Met Breuer museum.
No, not that tuxedo – although formal wear wouldn’t look out of place in such elegant surroundings. We’re talking about the Tuxedo cocktail, which drew its name, according to bar lore, from the same place the dinner jacket did: Tuxedo Park, New York, once the exclusive upstate retreat of New York City’s wealthiest families.
Tuxedo cocktails – variations on the martini – are adorning menus at new bars around the US, many of them inside boutique hotels: in Chicago (at Vol. 39, inside the Kimpton Gray Hotel, and Somerset, in the Gold Coast neigh- bourhood); in San Francisco (the Douglas Room, inside the Tilden Hotel); and in New Orleans (Loa bar, inside the International House Hotel).
“It’s something that I wanted on the menu,” said Thomas Carter, an owner of Flora Bar. “It’s a cocktail I particularly love. I love maraschino liqueur, but it’s one of those ingredients that you can’t use too much of.”
It’s possible to hate maraschino liqueur, as many people do, and still love the Tuxedo, because there are two Tuxedos – one without the liqueur – that have been battling it out for a century.
One, generally believed to be the original Tuxedo, is made with gin, sherry and orange bitters. It’s elegant and bone dry.
The other, typically referred to as Tuxedo No 2, contains gin, vermouth, maraschino liqueur and absinthe. It is DogsatthePerimeter. also elegant, but lightly luscious. (You can find that one at Flora Bar, the Bar Room in the Beekman and the Douglas Room.)
Jessica Lambert, the head bartender at Vol. 39, is a fan of sherry and the original Tuxedo but does not bear a grudge against the competing drink. “I think there’s room for both to exist,” she said.
One thing all the new Tuxedos seem to have in common is their luxe surroundings. “The hotel bar seems to be suitable to the old classics,” said Mo Hodges, the head bartender and an owner of the Douglas Room, where the Tuxedo is treated as the house martini. “There’s something about being in older rooms that matches up with the Tuxedo.You want to be drinking a drink that people drank there before you.”