I was flipping through my copy of The Twenties in Vogue
the other day, and I was reminded of how much I enjoy the book. (The Thirties in Vogue
is also quite good.) It's fun to pore over the old photos of socialites wearing chic fashion as well as to read about the hijinks, the frivolity, and the trends of the day.One of my favorite sections of the book is that which covers the food and cocktail crazes of the era. Back in the 1920s, of course, most people were cocktail mad, drinking such libations as the Corpse Reviver, the Between the Sheets, and, of all the crazy names, the Bosom Caresser. At least, this was what Vogue was reporting at the time. And canapes were also starting to come into fashion, something that was also, evidently, covered by the magazine in great detail. A canape that got an honorable mention in Vogue was one served at Somerset Maugham's home on the Riviera. His canape consisted of "a green olive stuffed with a nut dipped into Gentlemen's Relish, wrapped in a strip of bacon." That sounds tasty to me, but finding Gentlemen's Relish in Atlanta isn't the easiest endeavor.
Of the five or six cocktail recipes that appear in this book, one in particular caught my eye: Lady Mendl's Invention. The book fails to mention the origin of this recipe, but a Google search identified this cocktail by another name, Pink Lady. Did Elsie de Wolfe invent this cocktail? Or, did she adopt it as her own? I can't say, but I mixed one up over the weekend to see what the fuss was about. The cocktail isn't really bad, but it did remind me of the pink penicillin I had to take when I was sick with strep throat as a child. If you liked that taste (and I didn't), you might enjoy this cocktail.
And if any of you know what exactly Lady Mendl's connection was to this cocktail, do tell!
Lady Mendl's Invention
*Recipe is based on a 1 1/2 ounce measure. Shake well with broken ice and serve while frothy.
3/4 gin
1/4 grenadine
juice of half a lemon
1 white of egg
Hoyningen-Huene photo and Fish illustration from The Twenties in Vogue