Last Word

History

The earliest known written reference to the Last Word is among a list of cocktail names in a souvenir menu sent to members of the Detroit Athletic Club with the club's July-August 1916 issue of its magazine. There is no accompanying recipe, just the cocktail's name and its respective price among the other cocktails listed. At 35 Cents, the Last Word is twice the price of a Manhattan.

The Last Word's link to the Detroit Athletic Club is affirmed by notes accompanying the recipe in Ted Saucier's 1951 book Bottoms Up!.

LAST WORD
Courtesy Detroit Athletic Club, Detroit
This cocktail was first introduced here around thirty years ago by Frank Fogarty, who was very well known in vaudeville. He was called the 'Dublin Minstrel,' and was a very fine monologue artist.
1/4 dry gin
1/4 maraschino
1/4 chartreuse
1/4 lime juice
Ice
Serve in cocktail glass.

Ted Saucier, 1951

The Detroit Athletic Club, or the DAC, was established in 1887 by a bunch of young athletes with a clubhouse on Detroit's Woodward Avenue. The DAC was then reborn in 1913 by a group of prominent Detroit automotive and industrial leaders who built the magnificent six-story Clubhouse on Madison Avenue, which opened in 1915 and remains the club's home to this day.

In his 1951 book, Ted Saucier says, "This cocktail was first introduced here around thirty years ago by Frank Fogarty." Thirty years prior to the 1951 publication date indicates circa 1920, a mere four years off when the Last Word appeared in that commemorative menu. When Saucier says, "around here," he means New York City, where his book was published, and Saucier was also the publicist for New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

But who was Frank Fogarty? Known as the "The Dublin Minstrel", Frank Fogarty was a famous American theatre entertainer who was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, but from the age of two grew up and lived on Warren Street, Brooklyn, New York City. He broke into vaudeville (akin to today's stand-up comedy) in 1911 when he performed at the Orpheum in Brooklyn and became famous for his monologues, winning the New York Morning Telegraph contest for the most popular vaudeville performer in 1912. He typically opened his performance with a song and finished with a recitation - some surmise that this is where the drink's Last Word name emanates. Fogarty was quite a speaker who dabbled in politics, being elected president of the vaudeville actors' union in 1914.

Thanks to that menu from July 1916, it's certain that the Last Word was being served at the DAC at least five months before Fogarty, who is known to have visited the Club in December 1916. Hence, we can perhaps assume that Fogarty enjoyed a Last Word cocktail while at the club in December 1916, so much so that he asked for the recipe to enable him to request the cocktail at bars back in New York. Hence, his "introducing the Last Word around here" [New York] just before Prohibition. It could be that, knowing Fogarty was booked to visit, the bartenders at the DAC created the Last Word in his honour, hence its premium price and inclusion in that commemorative menu.

I favour the theory that the Last Word originated at the DAC over the other possibility: that Fogarty introduced the cocktail to the DAC during an earlier visit.

The Last Word remained popular after Prohibition and thus found its way into Ted Saucier's book. However, like so many cocktails, the Last Word fell out of favour and was forgotten. That was until 2003, when Murray Stenson, a bartender at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, Washington, found the recipe in a 1952 copy of Saucier's book. Murray added the Last Word to the menu at the Zig Zag Café, where it was well-received by regulars. As Tan Vinh wrote in The Seattle Times on 11th March 2009, "The drink became a cult hit around Seattle, then Portland and was eventually picked up at cocktail dens in New York City, where many bartending trends are set. The Last Word then started to appear on drink menus in Chicago and San Francisco and spread to several cities in Europe - especially around London and Amsterdam - and beyond."

Over on America's East Coast, when Audrey Saunders opened Manhattan's Pegu Club in 2005, the Last Word was one of the cocktails championed by her team, including Phil Ward, the man responsible for both the Division Bell and the Final Ward, one of the best-known riffs on the Last Word.

The DAC was made aware of the Last Word cocktail when a Seattle newspaper asked about the famous drink that was so popular in the city. The DAC embraced the Last Word cocktail, returning it to its menu in 2009 and naming a new rooftop lounge after the cocktail.