The Ansonia

History

Adapted from a recipe by Charles Christopher in his 1934 Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars and named after a luxurious residential hotel on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Ansonia was built in 1904 and was the permanent home of the rich and famous, including baseball player Babe Ruth, composer Igor Stravinsky, writer Theodore Dreiser and operatic tenor Enrico Caruso. The first air-conditioned hotel in New York, the hotel's opulence was legendary and included a lobby pool and fountain, which was home to a family of live seals.

The original recipe called for dashes of Ojen bitters rather than absinthe. However, absinthe was banned in the USA at the time and Ojen was a Spanish brand of absinthe, so this was a way to communicate the use of absinthe to other bartenders without highlighting the fact to authorities.

ANSONIA
2/3 Scotch
2 Dashes Maraschino
2 Dashes Italian Vermouth
Dash Ojen Bitters
Glass No. 1. Stir.

Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars, 1903-33

The Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars book includes two other unrelated cocktails also named "Ansonia", a Scotch-based fix with port, orgeat and lime; and an apricot brandy-based cocktail with rye, sherry, lemon and grenadine.