Algonquin

2 parts Rye Whiskey

1 part French Vermouth

1 part Pineapple juice

Stir and Strain

The Algonquin has fame for me by being the home of Dorothy Parkers ‘Vicious Circle’ in the 1920’s. The hotel, despite its raving prohibitionist owner became the home of her highness along with a revolving door of other writers and actors, Hemingway, Harpo Marx, Robert Benchley et al. who sat around from lunch time onwards flexing their wit and getting slowly drunk on whatever was available at the time.

Its where expressions like ‘to drink one under the table’, ‘one-night stand’, ‘to mess around’ and ‘what the hell’ come from.

I remember visiting 15 years ago, solely to see the Oak room at the Algonquin where they gathered, to discover on arrival that it was unused and closed and had to beg the nice concierge to show me in for a quick peak. It wasn’t the spectacular edifice to Dorothy I was hoping, but nonetheless had a nice sense of history about it, and I spent a little time imagining the group perched around a giant round table to the side.

Because of this I’ve always wanted to like this drink but haven’t quite managed to make it worthy of its history, the pineapple is one of those throwbacks to that wonderful new ingredient spread by Dole and the man from Del Monte during the great depression, but for me it just doesn’t ever seem to marry properly with the rye, or vermouth. To be honest I actually tried this with a lime and sugar addition to see if it helped, it does a little, but not enough I  my mind to make it the named drinks for what at the time was one of New York’s greatest and most interesting of hotels, it also doesn’t appear in any of the books I’m using, I was doing a Dorothy Parker cocktail class tonight though and thought it would be an apt drink for the night.

Sadly this is a drink I need to put a lot more work into if I’m to make it something I’d enjoy.