1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors See what you think of that.' Traverson tasted it. Then he swallowed it whole. "'By God!' he said, 'you've really got something new! That will make a big hit. Make me another and I will take it back to that customer in the dining room. Bet you'll sell a lot of them. Have you got plenty of oranges? If you haven't, you ,better stock up, because I'm going to sell a lot of those cocktails during lunch.' "Up to that time we never ·µsed more than one dozen oranges per day in the Bar. I sent down to the storeroom and got two dozen. The Storeroom keeper came up him– self and wanted to know what I meant by ordering so many oranges. 'What the hell are you going to do with them?' he demanded. 'Well,' I said, 'maybe I will take them home, if I can.' But I didn't. "The demand for Bronx cocktails started that day. Pretty soon we were using a whole case of oranges a day. And then several cases. "The name? No, it wasn't really named directly after the borough or the river so-called. I had been at the Bronx Zoo a day or two b~fore, and I saw, of course, a lot of beasts I had never known. Custom~rs used to tell me of the strange animals they saw after a lot of mixed drinks. So when Traverson said to me, as he started to take the drink in to the customer, 'What'll I tell him is the name of this drink?' I thought of those animals, and said: 'Oh, you can tell him it is a 'Bronx'.'' That original Bronx was later modified by other bar– men, and the formula preserved in the book hereafter to be liberally quoted, resembled Johnnie's invention only as one cocktail might resemble another. And in- [ 8 I )