Metropole

History

The Metropole first appears in George J. Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks and was the signature cocktail of the Hotel Metropole, located just off Times Square at Broadway and 42nd Street. It is a subtle adaptation of the 1884 Metropolitan Cocktail.

Metropole Cocktail.
Two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes Peyschaud bitters, one dash orange bitters, half a jigger brandy, half a jigger French vermouth, a mixing-glass half-full fine ice. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass, add maraschino cherry.

George J. Kappeler, Modern American Drinks, 1895

The Hotel Metropole opened on 27th April 1889 after proprietors Greene & Putney acquired the failed Rossmore Hotel and combined it with the neighbouring hotel at the corner of 42nd Street. This was the first hotel in New York City to have running water in every room but had a less than salubrious reputation due to the clientele its all-night, licensed street-level Café Metropole attracted.

As Albert Stevens Crockett says of this cocktail in his 1931 The Old Waldorf Bar Days, "Attributed to a once well-known and somewhat lively hotel, whose bar was a long centre of life after dark in the Times Square district."

The hotel was demolished in 1984, and the Times Square Tower now occupies the site.