Name: Mamie Taylor Highball
Total time: 2 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 45 ml Scotch whisky; 90 ml Ginger ale

Ingredients

1 ¹⁄₂ fl oz

Blended Scotch whisky

3 fl oz

Thomas Henry Ginger Ale

Flavour Profile

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

Health & Nutrition

Nutrition:

One serving of Mamie Taylor Highball contains 133 calories

Alcohol content:

1 standard drinks
12.12% alc./vol. (24.24° proof)
14.2 grams of pure alcohol

History

Bartenders apparently became so sick of making Mamie Taylors in the 1900s that they hiked up the price of the cocktail to discourage customers from ordering it.

Mamie Taylor was invented in 1899 in Rochester, New York, and it spread like wildfire. The name is a bit of a mystery, but there are several versions of a tale linking this cocktail to the Broadway star of the same name.

Thirty years after its creation, the Mamie Taylor appears in Albert Stevens Crockett's 1935 The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book with the juice of half a lime served in a Collins glass. Sadly, the cocktail never managed to recover from Prohibition and has since faded from the limelight.

MAMIE TAYLOR
Juice on-half Lime (Colins glass)
One jigger Scotch Whiskey
One bottle imported Ginger Ale

A. S. Crockett, 1934 Old-Waldorf-Astoria-Bar-Book/

Comments & Discussion

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Peter M Premium Member 2y

This seems like it might be perfect for a mild autumn afternoon...

Peter M Premium Member 2y

The original recipe calls for "One bottle imported Ginger Ale". I'm curious if they used to come in bottles of about 90 ml / 3 oz, or if they were just originally using a lot more Ginger Ale. (A quick Google seems to suggest that 7 oz was the smallest.)

Hunter Newsome 3y

The coalescence of flavors works so well in this drink. A great introduction to scotch, and a lot more approachable than the equally good scotch highball.

Chris Haley Premium Member 4y

I’ve loved this cocktail ever since I found it in Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. To me, the lime essential. Trying to revive it by converting the many Moscow Mule drinkers out there…it is SO much more interesting!