Park Avenue

Serve in a

Garnish:

Skewered Luxardo Maraschino cherry

How to make:

SHAKE all ingredients with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.

Review:

Very fruity and well-balanced rather than dry or sweet.

The recipe previously on this page was in line with that in the 1977 Jones' Complete Barguide:
50ml (1 2/3oz) Dry gin
20ml (2/3oz) Pineapple juice
10ml (2/3oz) Orange Curaçao
10ml (1/3oz) Rosso (sweet) vermouth
But thanks to a comment by Clarence Castillo (see below), in February 2023 I adopted Ted Haigh's 2009 Park Avenue. Then, a month later, thanks to further encouragement from Clarence, I dropped the gin back a tad and added Daiquiri (roasted pineapple & mint bitters).

History:

A degree of mystery surrounds this vintage cocktail, partly due to its first known appearance in a recipe book, Dexter Mason's 1930 The Art of Living, being quite a different recipe to that recognised as a Park Avenue today.

THE PARK AVENUE
2 parts Champagne
1 part gin
1 part orange juice
A dash of cherry brandy
Shake rapidly with only one large piece of ice.

Dexter Mason, 1930

Unhelpfully, in his 1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book Coronation-Edition, W. J. Tarling lists the Park Royal in the "Supplementary List" of "the names of many Cocktails of which space forbids giving the recipes", so confirming a cocktail with this name existed in the 1930s but not what it comprised.

In his 2009 book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh includes a recipe for the Park Avenue from a 1934 cocktail menu from Hotel Astor, New York City.

INGREDIENTS:
2 ounces (1/2 gill, 6 cl) gin
¾ ounce (1/6 gill, 2 cl) pineapple juice
¾ ounce (1/6 gill, 2 cl) sweet vermouth
2 teaspoons (10 ml) orange curaçao
* Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass.

Ted Haigh, 2009

The earliest cocktail book reference to a recipe broadly in line with that of the Hotel Astor I've found is in Stanley M. Jones' 1977 Jones' Complete Barguide.

PARK AVENUE
Cocktail glass
Shake
1-1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz pineapple juice
1/4 oz sweet vermouth
1/4 oz orange curacao

Stan Jones, 1977

Nutrition:

One serving of Park Avenue contains 185 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 1.7 standard drinks
• 22.18% alc./vol. (44.36° proof)
• 23.3 grams of pure alcohol