Peggy Olson’s first copywriting success is an ad for Sterling Cooper client Belle Jolie, a lipstick manufacturer. To celebrate, a gang from the office including Pete Campbell, Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane, Freddie Rumson, Joan Holloway, Lois Sadler, and the switchboard girls head to P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue.
An authentic New York “saloon” for 125 years and a favorite haunt of Frank Sinatra’s, P. J. Clarke’s has long been a popular watering hole and eatery for the rich and powerful, the working man, and the Mad Man. It’s where the great songwriter Johnny Mercer wrote “One for My Baby,” and the ashes of a favorite patron rest in peace behind the bar.
What might they have been drinking that afternoon as they danced to Chubby Checker and the Twist? We asked Doug Quinn of P. J. Clarke’s for his suggestions.
New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni calls Quinn “a legend,” and “the bartenders’ bartender.” Quinn has been tending bar at P. J. Clarke’s (“the Vatican of saloons,” he calls it) on Third Avenue since 2003. He wasn’t born until a few years after Peggy Olson’s visit, but Quinn tapped his encyclopedic knowledge of classic cocktails and suggested a Sidecar, a mix of brandy, curaçao, and lemon juice, and a Vesper—also called a Vesper martini—made with gin, vodka, and Lillet, a French aperitif wine.
Quinn wrote to us that a Sidecar, “two parts strong, one part sweet, one part sour, adheres to the Pythagorean formula of a classic cocktail. How well you make a Sidecar is a good indication of how good a bartender you are.” Quinn added that, according to legend, the Sidecar was created at Harry’s New York Bar, a Paris bistro, by Harry himself and was named for the motorcycle sidecar that conveyed Harry to and from his establishment. “If you substitute rum for brandy,” wrote Quinn, “it becomes a drink called ‘Between the Sheets.’ A far naughtier version of a Sidecar.”
COURTESY OF DOUG QUINN, P. J. CLARKE’S NEW YORK, NEW YORK
NOTE: To make a flamed orange twist, take an orange slice, separate the pulp of the fruit from the rind and squeeze the juice from the pulp into the cocktail. Then, take the rind/twist and twist it over a flame next to the cocktail (a bar candle will do). The oil squeezed from the fruit will ignite. Drop twist into the cocktail.
According to Doug Quinn, “You can sugar coat the rim of the glass, for a lady.”
11⁄2 ounces cognac (Hennessey VS)
3⁄4 ounce Cointreau
1 squeeze (1⁄2 ounce) fresh lemon juice
1 squeeze (1⁄4 ounce) fresh orange juice
Flamed orange twist, for garnish
(see note above)
YIELD: 1 DRINK
“This cocktail has its origins in Ian Fleming’s 1953 Casino Royale and is named after femme fatale double agent Vesper Lynd,” Quinn wrote to us. “The cocktail never made it to the James Bond movie version…As for Vesper…she killed herself and Bond never sipped the cocktail again.” The Vesper, added Quinn, is both appropriate to the Mad Men era and timeless.
THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY CROWD AT P.J. CLARKE’S
COURTESY OF DOUG QUINN, P. J. CLARKE’S NEW YORK, NEW YORK
NOTE: Lillet Blonde is a French apéritif made with wine and brandy.
11⁄2 ounces gin (Beefeater)
11⁄2 ounces vodka (Ketel One Citroen)
1⁄2 ounce Lillet Blonde
Approximately 1⁄3 ounce fresh lemon juice
Flamed orange twist, for garnish
(see Sidecar note)
YIELD: 1 DRINK