Comments on: The mystery of the Old Pal cocktail https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/ You can make these cocktails. Start right now. Tue, 09 May 2023 23:02:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Keith Bass https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-233655 Tue, 09 May 2023 23:02:31 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-233655 I’ve been making it all wrong! I’ve been using sweet vermouth and I have to admit I like it. Will try it the correct way and see what it tastes like

]]> By: Doug Ford https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-108553 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 16:20:07 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-108553 In reply to Vino Yang.

Hi, Vino,

My take on vermouth references in older cocktail manuals is to interpret “French” as meaning dry white vermouth, and “Italian” as meaning sweet red vermouth.

(And then, just to complicate things, every once in a while you encounter a reference to “Chambray,” which is a little vague, possibly meaning dry, possibly the sweeter bianco—in which case, I usually just go with the one that I find most pleasing in the particular drink.)

Thanks for commenting, and congratulations on having a 1930 ABC.

]]> By: Vino Yang https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-108552 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 08:51:13 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-108552 Hello Doug
I found the book “ABC of Mixing Cocktails”, but it’s 1930 edition, in this book it show me the recipe is: Canadian club, French vermouth(I dont know if it dry or sweet, but in my opinion it could be sweet, cause in the past, lot of recipe is vermouth without dry or sweet, but most of them are sweet right now. On the other hand I believe at that time people more like sweet drinks like Bijou ), and Campari. And about Eyetalian, its a slang of American means Italian American Style or just means Italian.
Hope those could help you to find out the truth.

]]> By: Camper English (@alcademics) https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-76973 Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:12:21 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-76973 In reply to Doug Ford.

Thanks! I think the ABC ref was a mistake. I do wonder what happened after this (how it became dry vermouth) and if it was another of the numerous Savoy copying errors.

]]> By: Doug Ford https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-76965 Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:00:19 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-76965 In reply to Camper English (@alcademics).

Hi, Camper,

I suppose I should have made a link of that reference, and perhaps I’ll retrofit it. The ABC reference is based on Erik Ellestad’s SavoyStomp writeup on the Old Pal, at http://savoystomp.com/2009/05/17/old-pal-cocktail/. As I’ve written elsewhere: Alas! that I’ve never seen an original ABC, to verify.

I have noticed that there is some recent controversy about the real first publication date. My journalism professors would have been very unhappy to learn that I had so baldly published the 1922 ABC attribution without having a first edition in hand, or at least without a little wiggle room for deniability.

I don’t know of an earlier reference to sweet vermouth (which I take “Eyetalian” to be), before the 1927 Moss account in Barflies.

Thanks for the question; I look forward to hearing how this comes out.

]]> By: Camper English (@alcademics) https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-76959 Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:56:38 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-76959 Hi Doug – I recently rediscovered this post. I have it on good authority that the Old Pal is not in Harry’s ABC. (I don’t own the book, but it’s Wondrich/Boehm are my fact-checkers on this.) Do you know where you got that info about it being in the book or an earlier reference with sweet vermouth?

]]> By: Doug Ford https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-12003 Mon, 12 Aug 2013 21:25:03 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-12003 In reply to Doug.

Patrick Duffy’s warning dots—what a great system.

Bacardi and bitters is an interesting idea for a Campari substitute. I look forward to giving “Pals of Old” a try, thanks for posting it.

]]> By: Doug https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/#comment-11852 Tue, 06 Aug 2013 18:26:55 +0000 http://cold-glass.com/?p=6962#comment-11852 Thanks for this excellent research, part of the pleasure of finding old cocktail recipes is discovering the background details of their names and provenance. Pioneers of Mixing Whiskies at Elite Bars lists a variation named “Pals of Old,” which keeps the equal measures but replaces the Campari with Bacardi and adds a dash of Abbott’s bitters (I used Reception Bitters). I was expecting this liquor-heavy version would be very bad, it sounds like the sort of prohibition-era crazy mixture that Patrick Duffy would have marked with a warning dot in the Mixer’s Manual. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to discover otherwise, although I should admit it wasn’t my first drink of the evening. I’m assuming that Campari wasn’t highly available in America at the time, and the Bacardi-bitters combo was supposed to be a substitute.

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