“NEW ROOSEVELT DRINK PROMISES GREAT RESULTS,” screamed the headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in June of 1910. Teddy had just returned from safari, where he had picked up the nickname “Bwana Tumbo,” and St. Louis bartender Henry “Papa” Harris—”eminent artificer of mixed intoxicants”—was inspired to invent a drink to celebrate.
The Roosevelt cocktail, a mix of rum, gin, vermouth, absinthe, and kirschwasser, was “guaranteed to make a mollycoddle bite a malefactor of great wealth, or a milksop thrash a Rough Rider,” the Post-Dispatch raved.
For well over a hundred years there have been cocktails made in honor of presidents and presidential candidates. Most have slipped into obscurity, but some are worthy of rescuing. We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD have unearthed historical recipes for a raft of drinks hailing the Chief, some wonderful, some woeful. The bartenders of Washington’s excellent Bar Pilar have taken four of the best of these historical drinks and have refined and updated them for the modern cocktail enthusiast.
Cocktail recipe by Matt Brown of Bar Pilar
But why should campaign cocktails be historical artifacts (delicious artifacts though they may be)? THE WEEKLY STANDARD and Bar Pilar are joining to sponsor a contest to find the best drinks for this presidential election season. The bartenders of Bar Pilar and the cocktail editors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD will try original drinks submitted by you and we will pick the best drink in honor of Hillary and the best in honor of Trump. The two winners will each receive a Campaign Cocktails poster. And the winning creation in honor of the winning candidate will be featured at Bar Pilar—true fame indeed!
Create an original cocktail for your candidate—complete with a catchy name, which will of course be one of the judges’ criteria—and send it to us at [email protected] by October 14. The winners will be announced by November 1, just in time for these new drinks to fuel the homestretch of the campaign.
This video is the third in a series that will feature cocktails celebrating Presidents Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Bull Moose Party. Be sure to check back for new episodes here. You can watch the first episode here, the second episode here, and the fourth episode here.
