Hemingway 53: Jack Rose

As part of his unceasing efforts to promote his book on Hemingway's cocktails, Philip Greene worked as guest bartender at the Last Exit in Mount Pleasant one night this week offering various versions of the Jack Rose cocktail. There is the bar's version, made with Calvados; the classic version with just Laird's applejack, lemon juice and grenadine; and the more elaborate version he attributes to Harry MacElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris and which he thinks is the one Hemingway meant when he referred to the drink in The Sun Also Rises.

I went straight for this version, which adds gin, red and white vermouth and orange juice to the original ingredients. It was very good -- refreshing with a good kick to it.

I was curious about the drink since the Jack Rose bar in D.C. is one of my new favorite places. Oddly, there is no whiskey in the cocktail that lent its name to this fabulous whiskey emporium but it's a catchy name in any case.

Harry's Bar was a favorite of mine in Paris. One of its claims to fame is that the Bloody Mary was invented there (there are other claimants as well). One day I was there and Harry's son, Andy MacElhone, was explaining to a TV crew that the original Bloody Mary never had celery in it as they filmed one of the crack bartenders mixing up a sample.

The bartender put the finished drink on the bar with a flourish, MacElhone finished his explanation, the TV crew turned off their spotlights and began packing up to leave. So I said, "What's going to happen to this drink?" MacElhone laughed and said, "Give it to him, he thought of it first."