It is a measure of the fame Cyril Ramon Newton once enjoyed that even though he was immortalized with a cocktail that bore his name, now, nearly a century later, sic transit gloria being what it is, no one remembers who Newton was, let alone the cocktail concocted in his honor. What a shame, as the drink, a variation on the martini, is an excellent one. It’s well worth reviving, as is the reputation of Newton, an important, if forgotten, figure in jazz history.
If you had strolled into the ballroom of London’s Savoy hotel in the mid-1920s, you would have found a dance floor packed with posh patrons doing the Texas Tommy, the Charleston, and other hot-jazz steps then in vogue. On the stage was the house orchestra, variously known as the Savoy Havana Band and the Savoy Orpheans. Widely recognized as one of the best dance bands in Europe, such was the reputation of the Savoy Orpheans that they backed George Gershwin when he performed his new composition “Rhapsody in Blue” in London in 1925.
To give one a sense of the talent on the Savoy stage, playing alto saxophone was an ambitious young American, Rudy Vallee, who wanted to be in front of the band, singing. He would realize that ambition within a couple of years back in the States, becoming the object of a new sort of teenage idolatry that would later attach to singers such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. But for the moment, the man at the microphone was Cyril Ramon Newton, who sang such hot-cha hits as the “Vo-Do-Do-De-O Blues.” Ramon was in the spotlight not just for his crooning; he also played violin and conducted.
The Ramon Newton cocktail was likely invented by Harry Craddock, majordomo of the Savoy bar — not only was Ramon a brand to be promoted at the hotel, but the drink makes its first appearance in print in Craddock’s 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book.
Suave and debonaire, Ramon was well liked by the ladies, who fought for his affections. In the late 1920s, Ramon’s wife, Florence Austin Newton, dragged a Mrs. Pat Hardy before Mr. Justice Swift’s court, accusing her of using her “charms to steal away another woman’s husband.” The Newtons and the Hardys had been friends, and Pat had boasted to Florence that “she could get any man she set out for.” Florence would later find this claim objectionable when Pat set out for Ramon.
After the trial, Ramon’s celebrity waned. Little was heard from him until 1949, when a small item appeared in the press, a short article headlined “From Ballroom to Factory.” A reporter had found the once-famous Ramon Newton working at the rather less than glamorous Royal Ordnance Factory at Poole. “Overalls have replaced the smart dinner suit and gleaming shirtfront,” read the article, “but otherwise he is not much altered in appearance since the days when he was a popular band-leader at the Savoy.” Ramon had put away his violin in 1940 to do war work. The fighting finished, Ramon left the violin gathering dust and stayed on at the munitions plant. Ramon was philosophical about his fleeting fame. Factory work “may not be every musician’s choice of a job,” Ramon told the reporter, “but at 55 I’m quite happy to stay out of the limelight and let the youngsters have their fling.”
Ramon was probably smart to keep his day job. There wasn’t much market for the old “Vo-Do-Do-De-O” in the post-war bebop days of “Oop Bop Sh’ Bam.”
Ramon Newton may have called it quits, but there’s no reason the Ramon Newton cocktail shouldn’t grab back a share of the limelight. As with many of the best drinks, a Ramon is simple, using just three ingredients — 1 oz gin, 1/2 oz French (dry) vermouth, and 1/2 oz Hercules.
“But what,” you may be asking, “is Hercules?” Cocktail archaeologist David Wondrich has identified the long-defunct brand as being a variety of bittersweet red wine aperitif. If your taste runs toward sweet, substitute Dubonnet for the Hercules; if you like bitter, try a chinato vermouth. Stir, stir, stir the ingredients with ice until extremely cold and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with orange peel.
Instead of saying “Cheers!” before drinking, try “Vo-Do-Do-De-O!”
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
