Recent Articles

The Return of Arizona’s Original Cocktail: The Statehood

Edible Phoenix, MAY 2018

Many a bartender knows that the secret ingredient to a well-made cocktail is its origin story. And geography plays no small part in such tales of cocktails; great origin stories often are blended right into a drink’s name. Think of the Long Island Iced Tea, the Singapore Sling or the Moscow Mule. Even Manhattan will always have the Manhattan (although it was arguably named for a New York social club, not the borough).

But why has Grand Canyon State been left off the list of cocktail-inspiring climes? Where is the Phoenix cocktail? The Tucson? Or even the Arizona cocktail?

Where the Cocktail Party Came From

It has surprisingly feminist origins.

Atlas Obscura, July 2017

Alec Waugh (brother of the novelist Evelyn) insisted in a 1970 Esquire essay that he invented the idea of drinks-before-dinner in the 1920s. Others point to a Tacoma Times article from April 1917 crediting a St. Louis socialite, Mrs. Clara Bell Walsh, as the first to hold a party devoted exclusively to mixed drinks….