1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Hall of Fame "Gin Rickey." However, that Bar could justly claim no such honor; nor, as a matter of fact, could any spot in New York, though the man for whom the drink was named was long one of the Bar's most familiar figures. Part of posterity has known him as Colonel "Jim" Rickey. His name was not Jim, but Joe. Colonel Joe Rickey had been a lobbyist in Washington, and as such used to buy drinks for members of Congress in the days before they had come to depend upon the discreet ac– tivities of gentlemen in green hats to keep them wet while they voted dry. During a spell of torrid weather, the brain of one of the barkeepers at Shoemaker's, a famous drinking place, expand~d to such an extent that he invented a new drink-by squeezing limes into gin, ?-nd hosing the result with a siphon. Colonel Rickey was one of his favorite patrons, and as he was the first man who happened in after the birth of the concoction, the "barkeep" announced to him that he had perfected what in those days was an equivalent of a "wow," and would he try it? Colonel Rickey was "agreeable." He quickly tossed off the offering, smacked his lips, announced that it "hit the spot," and demanded another. Whereupon the barman denominated the drink the "Gin Rickey:" Sub– sequent years saw the invention of the "Rye Rickey" and the "Scotch Rickey." Colonel Rickey was said to be the first importer of limes, in quantity, into this country. His activities in that direction may have antedated the invention of the Gin Rickey, as described, or it may have been that the compliment paid him by the Washington bartender de- [ 39]