Tuxedo Cocktail

The Tuxedo is certainly a blue-blood drink. It's part of a family of cocktails from the late 18th and early 19th centuries that Jerry Thomas might have referred to as “fancy martinis”—gin, vermouth, bitters, a dash of maraschino, and occasionally a little absinthe. Interestingly enough, in Daly's Bartenders' Encyclopedia from 1903, the Tuxedo recipe calls for Maple Gin, which, apparently, was dry gin sweetened with a drizzle of maple syrup. Apparently Daly was alone in his passion for maple gin, as it doesn't really seem to turn up anywhere else. Over the next several years, the Tuxedo continued to evolve with snapshots being taken from time to time in the form of written recipes. The more eccentric ones included sherry, which yielded an exceptionally dry, nutty cocktail. The maraschino and absinthe do a much better job of balancing the gin and vermouth, so we recommend sticking with them.