In the early 1900s the president of the Packard Motor Car Company, Henry Bourne Joy, thought that his likes in the booming automobile industry ought to have a proper club instead of meeting in regular bars. He took the already existing Detroit Athletic Club, founded in 1887, and together with 108 prominent Detroiters he hired an accomplished architect to create a stately building in the center of Detroit’s entertainment district. Architect Albert Kahn had recently traveled to Italy and was inspired in his design by Palazzo Borghese and Palazzo Farnese in Rome when he set out to build the six story Clubhouse, which was completed in 1915.

The club featured athletic facilities, pools, restaurants, ball rooms, guest rooms and, of course, a bar and this is where the Last Word cocktail saw the light of day around 1915. The creator is likely to be vaudeville performer Frank Fogarty, also known as the Dublin Ministrel for his Irish anecdotes. Fogarty was performing at Detroit’s Temple Theater at the time, and the name of the cocktail might be an allusion to the monologue with which he closed his act.

The recipe for the Last Word didn’t appear in print until Ted Saucier’s 1951 Bottoms Upwhere he calls Fogarty “a very fine monologue artist”. After Bottoms Up the cocktail fell out of favor until bartender Murray Stenson at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle found it in the Saucier book in 2004. Stenson made it a hit starting in Seattle and Portland and finally finding its way around the world.

The cocktail glass was designed in 1964 by Polish glass designer Wszewłod Sarnecki.

Last Word

1 part Gin
1 part Green Chartreuse
1 part Maraschino
1 part freshly squeezed lime juice
1 Maraschino cherry garnish

Shake all ingredients with plenty of ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Enjoy while looking through Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up looking for new cocktails that deserve a second chance.