🥃 Last Word

Last Word is a Detroit cocktail that American bartenders count among the classics: a sour made from four equal parts of gin, green Chartreuse (a herbal liqueur), maraschino cherry liqueur and fresh lime juice. The International Bartenders Association (IBA) lists it among “The Unforgettables”. The name means “the last word”, and the cocktail has been known since at least 1916.

Origins. According to Difford's Guide, the earliest known mention is a souvenir menu of the Detroit Athletic Club, distributed with the club magazine in July–August 1916. The recipe is not there, only the name: a Last Word cost twice as much as a Manhattan. So the cocktail existed before Prohibition in the United States.

Fogarty and Saucier. In the 1951 book “Bottoms Up!”, Ted Saucier attributed the drink to a vaudeville performer, Frank Fogarty, known as the “Dublin Minstrel”. However, Fogarty apparently visited the club only in December 1916, so the author was probably the club itself. After Prohibition the cocktail was forgotten for a long time.

Revival. In 2003 bartender Murray Stenson of the Zig Zag Café in Seattle found the recipe in Saucier's book and put it back on the menu. The drink spread to bars around the world, and in 2009 the Detroit Athletic Club returned it to its own menu. The IBA recipe uses 22.5 ml of each ingredient, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass.

Why it matters to you. The sweet-sour taste hides the strength: three of the four ingredients in Last Word are strong spirits, and green Chartreuse itself is over 50% ABV. A name on a menu does not guarantee the same recipe, since bartenders vary the proportions. The WHO reminds us that there is no safe level of alcohol.