Algonquin

The Algonquin takes its name from the Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan, best known as the meeting place of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of writers, critics, and actors. Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and George S. Kaufman were among those who lunched there regularly from around 1919 to 1929. The cocktail's origin is otherwise undocumented and its link to the hotel is largely inferential, since the Algonquin was a dry establishment even before Prohibition and it is unlikely the Round Table wits ever drank there together. The earliest known published recipe, of rye, French vermouth, and pineapple juice, appeared as the "New Algonquin" in G. Selmer Fougner's 1935 column collection Along the Wine Trail, and it was reprinted in a 1937 issue of Esquire.

Later cocktail books muddy the record further: Crosby Gaige's 1941 Cocktail Guide and Ladies' Companion lists an unrelated "Algonquin Special" of sherry and port. Waldorf-Astoria publicist Ted Saucier's 1951 Bottoms Up prints a wholly different Algonquin built on rum, blackberry brandy, Benedictine, and lime, which he claimed was the hotel's actual house recipe. The rye-vermouth-pineapple version nonetheless became the standard, later reappearing in Stanley M. Jones' 1977 Complete Barguide and Ted Haigh's 2004 Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.