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Ward Eight

Classic/vintage · Hall of Fame and must know/try · Ward 8

4.0 134 ratings

Ingredients

2 oz Rye whiskey 50% abv
3/4 oz Lemon juice
3/4 oz Orange juice
1/4 oz Sugar syrup 'rich' (2:1)
1/6 oz Grenadine syrup

How to make

Serve in a coupe glass

Prepare

  1. 1 Select and pre-chill a COUPE GLASS.
  2. 2 Prepare garnish of skewered quarter orange slice wheel and Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.

Method

  1. 3 SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
  2. 4 FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.

Garnish

  1. 5 Garnish with skewered quarter orange slice and cherry.

Flavour profile

50.0% alc./vol. · 1.7 standard drinks · 185 calories

History

A spirited, sweet and sour combination, akin to politicians.

The Ward Eight cocktail takes its name from a voting district in Boston, known for political corruption. A 1951 article in Holiday Magazine attributes its creation to a bartender named Tom Hussion in November 1898, at Boston’s Locke-Ober Café, a fine-dining establishment. It was reportedly created in honour of Martin Lomasney, who was campaigning for election in Ward Eight. Lomasney, a teetotaller, may not have been present at the dinner organized by members of the Hendricks Club of socialites, and while it is possible he was toasted in his absence, the drinks were surely not mixed by Hussion, as he apparently did not begin working at Locke-Ober until 1900. Another bartender at Locke-Ober, Billy Kane, may have mixed the initial round of Ward Eights for the Hendricks Club that evening. However, this account is contradicted by a bartender named Charlie Carter, who, in a 1934 letter to G. Selmer Fougner published in his New York Sun “Along the Wine Trail” column, asserted that he created the Ward Eight to commemorate a Lomasney election victory in 1903. Verification of the 1951 Holiday Magazine article or the 1934 New York Sun column has not yet been successful; therefore, information is repeated from other sources. Access has also not yet been possible to a frequently cited 1907 column in the Boston Herald, which declares the cocktail “the most talked-of drink in Boston.” The cocktail is featured in the 1913 revised edition of The Cocktail Book - A Sideboard Manual for Gentlemen and, more notably, in Robert Vermeire’s 1922 Cocktails: How to Mix Them. Ward Eight. (Use Goblet.) One teaspoon fine sugar; juice of half lemon; one tablespoonful Grenadine syrup; one portion rye whiskey, one lump ice. Fill glass with siphon, stir well, ornament with fruit, and serve. Ward Eight Cocktail This cocktail must be well shaken. It is composed of: 1 teaspoonful of Grenadine. 1/8 gill of Orange Juice. 1/8 gill of Lemon Juice. 1/4 gill of Rye Whisky. This cocktail originates from Boston (U.S.A.), a city divided into eight wards.

Created by Tom Hussion