Name: Park Avenue
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 50 ml Gin; 22.5 ml Rosso/sweet vermouth; 22.5 ml Pineapple juice; 10 ml Orange Curaçao; 4 drop Margarita Bitters

Park Avenue
Jump to

Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 ²⁄₃ oz	Hayman's London Dry Gin
³⁄₄ oz	Strucchi Rosso Vermouth
³⁄₄ oz	Pineapple juice
¹⁄₃ oz	Orange Curaçao liqueur
4 drop	Difford's Margarita Bitters optional

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
Prepare garnish of skewered Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
Garnish with skewered cherry.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Rosso/rouge/sweet vermouth (di Torino) - Sulphur Dioxide/Sulphites

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

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).

View readers' comments

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 Avenue 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 189 calories

Alcohol content:

1.5 standard drinks
19.75% alc./vol. (19.75° proof)
20.8 grams of pure alcohol

More Anytime cocktails
More Aperitivo/aperitif cocktails
More Fruity (e.g. Pornstar Martini) cocktails

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

Join the discussion

Showing 3 comments for Park Avenue.
See discussion in the Forum

Please log in to make a comment

Clarence Castillo

6th March 2023 at 03:03

Looking forward to the definitive Difford's Park Avenue recipe. Love the site, glad I could help in a small way by bringing Haigh's recipe to your attention.

Simon Difford

6th March 2023 at 20:02

Many thanks, Clarence. I've just revisited it. Hopefully, you find the above an improvement. 60ml (2oz) gin was a tad too spirit-forward so I dropped back to 50ml (1 2/3oz) plus added the all-important bitters.

Clarence Castillo

6th February 2023 at 02:27

The version is Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails is 2 oz. gin, 0.75 oz. sweet vermouth, 0.75 pineapple juice, 2 tsp. Curacao. That version is a 5+ stars in my book. The only reason I don't return to it as often as other stalwarts like the Manhattan and Martini is that I don't have pineapple juice and Curacao in stock at all times.

Simon Difford

6th February 2023 at 10:44

Many thanks, Clarence. I've adopted Ted's recipe above. Having just made both versions I feel there's a middle way that I look forward to finding with further experimentation. I can see bitters and/or saline solution playing a role in future renditions.

Stephen Broughall

12th January 2022 at 00:12

Used orange curacao in place of Grand Marnier. Agree, nicely balanced cocktail.
Maybe use bianco vermouth rather than sweet vermouth?

Simon Difford

12th January 2022 at 21:25

I think bianco vermouth would be so far from the original as to be another cocktail but I have revisited and adjusted the recipe thanks to your comment drawing my attention to this cocktail. I've also added to its history.