1946 The Stock Club Bar Book by Lucius Beebe

In an era when Joe Zelli's, Harry's NewYork Bar and the men's bar on the Cambon side of the Ritz were probably the three best known tippling Taj Mahals in the world and when every Atlantic liner set down hundreds of solvent and thirsty Yanks full of devalu– ated fr€!!_1cs, Frank of the Ritz Bar was a~sort of universally recog– nized king of saloonkeepers and was, in fact, a very pleasant, generous and ~nderstanding friend to thousands of Americans. There was nothing eit her cheap or popular about the Ritz and there was no dandruff on the morning jackets of its customers, who included Evander BerryWall, the then King of Spain, the Prince ofWales, Phil Rlant, William B. Leeds and the Russian Grand Dukes then living in exile in Paris. The men's bar was also the happy romping and stomping ground, in summer, of most of Harvard, Yale andPrinceton with an occasional democratic leaven ofWilliams or Dartmouth. The Sidecar was invented by Frank, so far as fallible human memory can determine, about 1923 as a sort of companion piece to the Stinger only with even more expensive ingredients. It was always built by Frank for favored· customers with the Ritz's own bottling of a Vintage 1865 Cognac and set one back, in this redac– tion, the then equivalent of five American dollars.

Sidecar:

I%. oz. brandy %. oz. cointreau juice of half lime Shake and serve in 3 oz. cocktail glass.

The Stinger, while enjoying a far more universal and less period– design vogue then the Sidecar, is probably the only drink which while properly a cocktail is also an after-dinner liqueur at the same time. Like the Sidecar it can he fashioned as a rich man's

74: Stork Club Bar Book