Bronx, Gin, Two Vermouths and Orange
Reader ratingsEqual thirds of gin, French and Italian vermouth, with orange bitters, a spoonful of orange juice and a squeeze of peel: the Bronx as William Boothby printed it in 1908.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
- Prep
- Total
The Bronx in a small stemmed glass with a strip of orange peel, beside half an orange on white marble.
The story behind the recipe
Gin with both kinds of vermouth, French and Italian, and only a little orange: the Bronx began as a vermouth cocktail, not a juice drink. Its name was in New York newspapers by 1901, according to the word historian Barry Popik, but the bar books caught up only in 1908, with two recipes in the same year. William Boothby’s The World’s Drinks and How to Mix Them, printed in San Francisco, gives equal thirds of gin and the two vermouths with orange bitters, “about a barspoonful of orange juice and a squeeze of orange peel.” J. A. Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual, from New York, makes it half gin and a quarter each of the vermouths, with a twist of orange peel and no juice at all.
Credited to Pittsburgh
Boothby credited many of his cocktails to named bartenders, and this one is “A LA BILLY MALLOY, PITTSBURG, PA.”, a credit for the recipe as printed, not a claim of who made the first. The story usually told comes from a 1931 memoir of the old Waldorf-Astoria bar: Johnnie Solon, a bartender there, mixed it around 1900 and named it after the Bronx Zoo. That is a tradition, told some thirty years later; the bar books show the drink in print by 1908, and Popik’s newspaper finds put the name in New York seven years before.
Read more about this recipe
A spoonful of orange
Later Bronx cocktails pour in a good deal of orange juice. Boothby’s teaspoon only flavors the drink, so it stays close to a sweet-and-dry vermouth cocktail with gin, scented by the peel. Its only instruction is “Serve very cold”; he gives no method, so stirring is our choice, and Grohusko shook his. It comes to about 19% ABV.
MacElhone’s 1923 Monkey Gland took gin and orange the other way, half of it juice. Leave out the gin and vermouth and juice with sugar makes a Fresh Orangeade; how the Bronx reached MacElhone’s London book, with more orange in it, is in Cocktails in 1920s London and Paris.
BRONX COCKTAIL. 35
A LA BILLY MALLOY, PITTSBURG, PA.
One-third Plymouth gin, one-third French vermouth and one-third Italian vermouth, flavored with two dashes of Orange bitters, about a barspoonful of orange juice and a squeeze of orange peel. Serve very cold.
Recipe makes: 1 drink
Ingredients
For 1 drink. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink.
- Gin1 fl oz
- Dry (French) vermouth1 fl oz
- Italian (sweet red) vermouth1 fl oz
- Orange bitters2 dashes
- Fresh orange juice1 tsp
- Strip orange peel1
- Ice cubes
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 fl oz gin
- 1 fl oz dry (French) vermouth
- 1 fl oz Italian (sweet red) vermouth
- 2 dashes orange bitters
- 1 tsp fresh orange juice
- 1 strip orange peel
- ice cubes
Equipment
Mixing glass
Bar spoon
Strainer
Cocktail glass
Instructions
Chill a cocktail glass in the freezer or with ice water.
Pour the gin, dry vermouth, Italian vermouth, orange bitters and fresh orange juice into a mixing glass and fill it two-thirds with ice cubes.
Stir steadily with a bar spoon for about 30 seconds, until the glass is very cold to the touch.
Strain into the chilled glass, squeeze the orange peel over the top, skin side down, and drop it in or discard it.
Nutrition
150calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 82-proof gin and sweet dessert wine, a published value for dry vermouth (about 110 calories per 100 ml), and orange juice.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep gin and the two vermouths in equal thirds when you scale; stir no more than two drinks at a time.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Boothby prints proportions, not amounts; 1 fl oz (about 30 ml) of each makes a 3 fl oz drink before ice. His barspoon is about 1 teaspoon. Boothby names Plymouth gin; any London dry or Plymouth-style gin works.
For Grohusko’s version, use 1 1/2 fl oz gin and 3/4 fl oz each of the two vermouths, shake with ice, strain and add a twist of orange peel, with no juice.
Without alcohol, the drink can lean on its orange. Shake 1 1/2 fl oz unsweetened white grape juice, 1 fl oz fresh orange juice and 1 tsp honey with ice until the honey dissolves, strain into a cocktail glass and squeeze the orange peel over the top. This is a modern version; the orange bitters stay out, since they contain alcohol.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Hon. Wm. T. Boothby, The World’s Drinks and How to Mix Them (San Francisco, 1908), p. 23, No. 35; also J. A. Grohusko, Jack’s Manual (New York, 1908), p. 22
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Cocktails & Mixed Drinks
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1900s
- Difficulty
- Easy