December 19 – Singapore Sling

The Singapore Sling, by many regarded as the national drink of Singapore, was created at the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel by the bartender Mr Ngiam Tong Boon. It was first made sometime between 1899 when Mr Boon started working at the hotel and 1915 when he died traveling back to his native China. At the time etiquette stated that ladies should not consume alcohol in a public setting and instead had to make do with fruit juices. This gave Mr Boon the idea to create a drink that looked like juice but was infused with gin and spirits, finally making it possible for women to have a cocktail at Raffles.

The landmark Raffles Hotel was built in 1886 and was soon to become a favorite hangout for Singapore’s upper-class as well as famous travelers such as Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin and also Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II.

The original recipe was lost in 1930 but when the drink was published in the Savoy Cocktail Book the same year there are two different recipes for Slings from Singapore. One regular Singapore Sling and one called Straights Sling (after the British colony Straights Settlements). As it happens, the most commonly used recipe today is closer to the Straights version.

The glass was designed by Makoto Komatsu in 1980 and is called Crumple.

December 18 – Whiskey Sour

This is an old one. It was first published in The Bartender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas in 1862 but the concept of the sour was known and loved for over a century prior to that. During the 18th Century sea travel, especially from Europe to America, was an ordeal with malnutrition and scurvy taking its toll on the sailors. Thanks to Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon, The British Royal Navy started to mix lemon or lime with rum and water to stave off scurvy and so the sour was born, one of the oldest types of cocktails. From there it was only a matter of time before someone started to make a sour with American whiskey and made it what it is today.

The Whiskey Sour is traditionally made with whiskey, lemon juice, sugar and egg white, an ingredient that will smooth out the tartness of the lemon juice. Today the egg white is optional and you often find bars serving the Whiskey Sour without it.

On a side note, calling a spirit diluted with water a grog is also because of Vice-Admiral Vernon. He was known for wearing grogram coats giving him the nickname ”Old Grog”.

The glass called Dondolino was designed by Setsu & Shinobu Ito in 2016 and is painted using a technique with Japanese lacquer called Urushi, generally applied on wood.

December 17 – Saketini

The origins of the Saketini cocktail are not clear. It is said to have been invented by Matsuda San, a chef from Queens who introduced the drink at the New York World’s Fair in 1964.

After the World’s Fair the recipe for the Saketini was lost and the cocktail led an all but forgotten life until the -tini craze in the 1990s. Even though the Saketini was invented long before this the cocktail historian David Wondrich still puts the Saketini (maybe a but unfairly) in ”that sickly and dismal tribe” of chocolate martinis, mango martinis, and appletinis.

Another possible origin story is that the Saketini was invented at the first Benihana restaurant on West 56th Street in New York City. Benihana was founded by 25-year old Hiroaki Aoki the same year as the World’s Fair, 1964, and the cocktail is said to first having been made that same year.

The sake cup was designed in 1958 by Japanese glassware designer Masakichi Awashima.

December 14 – Champagne Cocktail

The Champagne Cocktail was referenced as early as in 1855 in a book by Robert Tomes called “Panama in 1855”. It made it into the first ever cocktailbook in 1862 when it appeared in Jerry Thomas’s book “The Bar Tenders Guide” . Jerry Thomas is considered by many to be the father of American mixology.

Champagne cocktails were mentioned by Mark Twain in 1869 in his book Innocents Abroad but was surely drunk long before that. This version, also called Maharajah’s Burra-Peg (burra meaning big or important in hindi and peg being old British slang for drink) is taken from Charles H. Baker’s book The Gentleman’s Companion from 1939.

Even though this cocktail remains at true classic it definitely has its detractors. David Embury, famous for his book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks called the cocktail “a decidedly inferior drink” and “an incongruous mess” that no true lover of Champagne should ever try. Just the thought of polluting Champagne with sugar and bitters was sacrilegious to him.

The Tulip glass was designed by Nils Landberg for the Swedish company Orrefors in 1957.

December 13 – Caffè Latte

The caffè latte has been known by different names throughout Europe since the 17th century. It was first mentioned in print in 1867 by William Dean Howell in his book “Italian Journeys” and was served in regions frequented by Americans. In the 1950s it appeared on menus in Berkeley, California and via Seattle in the 1980s the caffè latte made it back to Europe.

The cup is called Landscape and was designed in 2008 by Patricia Urquiola for Rosenthal.

December 12 – Mai Tai

The history of the Mai Tai is a story of the two most influential people in the world of tiki bars. Victor Jules Bergeron (aka Trader Vic) and Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt (aka Donn Beach, aka Don the Beachcomber). Donn Beach opened his first South Pacific style restaurant in Hollywood in 1933. He was a rum connoisseur and started making exotic rum drinks inspired by his many travels.

Trader Vic had his own restaurant called Hinky Dinks that he opened in 1934 in Oakland, California. After a trip to Cuba to refine his bartender skills and learn more about the world of rum, and possibly after visiting Don the Beachcomber, the Trader remodeled Hinky Dinks into a Polynesian-style tiki bar and changed the name to Trader Vic’s. This made it the first in a long line of restaurants around the world.

The Mai Tai was first made in 1944 for a couple of Tahitian friends of the Trader. They liked it so much that they exclaimed “Mai Tai-Roa A’e” meaning “Out of this world, the best” so the name of the cocktail was right there.

Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber fought over who had invented the Mai Tai for the better part of their careers but when Donn Beach launched his own Mai Tai mixer claiming the drink to be his invention the Trader had enough. Donn was sued and lost the court battle. Trader Vic announced “Anybody who says I didn't create this drink is a dirty stinker”.

It is most likely though that Trader Vic got his inspiration from Donn Beach’s Hollywood restaurant so without Donn we probably wouldn’t have the Mai Tai.

The glass was designed by Marco Zanuso in 1969 and is called Pitagora after its triangular base.

December 11 – Barbados

The Caribbean island of Barbados in the Lesser Antilles is the most eastern of all Caribbean islands. According to archeological findings the first settlers or visitors to Barbados may have landed on the island in 1600 BC. A more permanent Amerindian settlement was established around the 4th to 7th centuries AD. Barbados was populated by the Kalinago people since the 13th century.

Spanish navigators claimed the island for the Spanish Crown in the 15th century and it first appeared on maps in 1511. After the Spanish the Portuguese took it over in the 1530s until they gave way for the English when they arrived in Barbados in 1625 and later made it into a British colony. Even after the islands declaration of independence in 1966 it was actually part of the British Commonwealth until December 1st 2021 when Barbados transitioned to a republic and thus removed Queen Elizabeth as head of state.

Barbados is also the birthplace of rum. Mount Gay is the oldest operating rum distillery in the world and was founded in 1703. Thanks to its almost perfect conditions for growing sugar cane and the fact that its limestone bedrock is a fantastic filter for rainwater Barbados was almost destined to become a great rum producer. 

Rum aside, Barbados is famous for its green monkeys, flying fish, fish fries and, of course, Rihanna who in November 2021 was named national hero and received the title, the Right Excellent Robyn Rihanna Fenty.

Barbados is the only Caribbean island (and one of only four countries) to have had regular Concorde service. The route from London to Barbados was kept from 1987 until 2003. The flight took only three hours and 45 minutes instead of almost 9 hours.

December 10 – Hurricane

The Hurricane is another true classic of New Orleans even though there is said to have been a cocktail called Hurricane served at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Queens. Little is known about this version apart from it probably being made with rum and that it was served in a hurricane glass.

The second time a cocktail called Hurricane saw the light of day was at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans during the 1940s. This is the version that is still served today and it came into being out of necessity. During and after WWII Scotch and Bourbon were hard to come by but New Orleans had rum arriving from the Caribbean by the boatload. The spirits distributors thought up a clever way to deal with this. They required the bars to buy several cases of rum with each case of Scotch. This left Pat 0’Brien’s with more rum than they knew what to do with. Benson “Pat” O’Brien and his partner Charlie Cantrell, probably together with their head bartender Louis Culligan, decided to create a new cocktail to help use up the excess cases of rum. A potent cocktail with 4 oz (120 ml) rum.

The hurricane glass, giving the cocktail its name, is modeled after the classic hurricane lantern. This glass is called Riflesso and was designed by Isabel Antonia Giampietro in 1958.

December 5 – Capri

Just a short boat trip from Naples, and an even shorter one from Sorrento, lies the beautiful island of Capri. Famous for its lemon groves it is overlooking the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. Capri is a must see when traveling the south of Italy. And of course, Emilio Pucci opened up his very first boutique, La Canzone del Mare, in Capri's Marina Piccola in 1951.

December 4 – Boulevardier

This cocktail is essentially a rough version of a Negroni, the classic Italian cocktail invented by Count Camillo Negroni in 1919. The name Boulevardier can loosely be translated to “Man about town”. This drink was created in the 1920s by Erskine Gwynne, an American writer, socialite and nephew of railroad tycoon Alfred Vanderbilt.

Gwynne started a magazine by the same name, “Boulevardier”, in Paris for American expats and the cocktail was presumably named after the magazine. Erskine Gwynne often frequented Harry’s American Bar in Paris and the Boulevardier became popular after Harry MacElhone added it to his book “Barflies and Cocktails” in 1927.

The glass was designed in 1932 by Finnish designer Aina Aalto and is called Bölgeblick.

December 3 – Lynchburg Lemonade

In 1980 Tony Mason, a restaurant owner in Huntsville Alabama created the Lynchburg Lemonade. It was named after the city of Lynchburg Tennessee, home to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. Jack Daniel’s was established in 1866 and was one of the first distilleries registered in the United States. To this day the original recipe is used when producing Jack Daniel’s and even though they refer to the product as Tennessee Whiskey, the product meets every legal requirement to be called a Bourbon.

Interestingly, Lynchburg is in Moore County, a county that has been dry since 1910 so visitors to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery will not be able to sample any of the products.

The glass is called Puzzle and was designed by Ettore Sottsass in 2003 for Venini. Sottsass is most famous for starting the Memphis Design Group in Milan in 1980.

December 2 – Guggenheim Museum

In 1943 Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design “a monument” for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. After 6 separate sets of plans and a 16-year delay due to WWII and the death of Mr Guggenheim the museum was finally ready to open in 1959. This was 6 months after Frank Lloyd Wright himself passed away. The building was immediately recognized as an architectural gem and is by many thought to be the the most important building in Frank Lloyd Wright’s career.

December 1 – White Lady

The White Lady was invented by Harry MacElhone, twice. First in 1919 at Ciro’s Club in London when it featured crème de menthe, triple sec and lemon. This version had a 10 year run. In 1923 Harry bought his own bar, the legendary Harry’s New York Bar, in Paris and in 1929 he reinvented the cocktail and changed the crème de menthe to gin creating yet another classic cocktail.

The glass is called Marja and was designed by the Finnish designer Saara Hopea in 1956.