1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Fancy Potations and Otherwise

MARGUERITE (Collins)

One-half Lime Lump lee One jigger Tom Gin One imported Ginger Ale If for two, split

MAMIE TAYLOR Just who originated the Mamie Taylor is not a matter of record. So far as accessible authorities know, its recipe was first published one day in the'1old New York Herald, early in the century.James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the news– paper, believed that a new drink took rank among other inventions, and its creation might be chronicled in his paper as a matter of news. Solon made the first Mamie Taylor that ever graced the Waldorf Bar. He did not invent it. But it so happened that he had read the recipe in the Heraid the morning of the day when Traverson, head waiter of the Empire Room, came into the Bar at lunch time and said to him, "Johnnie, I've got a real job for you." "What's that?" Solon asked. "Well, I've got a customer who says he bets he can name a drink you can't make." "What's that?" "A Mamie Taylor." "Huh! A Mamie Taylor? That's easy," Solon averred. He had torn out the recipe and put it in his pocket. So under the eyes of the head waiter, Johnnie calmly proceeded to cut a lime in half, poured a jigger of Scotch whiskey, followed it with some cracked ice, dug into the refrigerator for a bottle of imported ginger ale, filled the glass, and stirred it with a long spoon. Traverson himself took the new drink into the Empire Room. After a few minutes, he came back. "That fellow says you must be a wizard," he told Solon. [ 205]