PERFECT SERVE
MMMM MONOCHROME ... THE CONTRAST BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE IS STARK. THAT’S WHY THE COLOURS WORK ON A PIANO KEYBOARD – OR A CHESSBOARD: THERE’S A DISTINCT DELINEATION BETWEEN ONE AND THE OTHER. SO WHY WOULD DRINKS BE ANY DIFFERENT?
T
he things you learn on that great repository of knowledge ... No, not the library; the internet of all things, digital and otherwise. A simply typed query into the origins of the Black Russian cocktail revealed that it first appeared in 1949 – and its existence is attributed to Gustave Tops. Tops was a barman at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in Belgium and who named the drink for Perle Mesta. (Thanks to Wikipedia and to cocktail historian Gary Regan of liquor.com for that nugget of information!) So who was Perle Mesta and what made her worthy of this delicious concoction of five parts vodka on the rocks with two parts of coffee-flavoured Kahlua liqueur poured over? At the time, she was the American ambassador to Belgium’s neighbour, Luxembourg. (Which coincidentally still boasts one of the highest wine consumption rates per head of population at 50-plus litres per year, more than anywhere else in the world – as well as secure and secret banking system, amongst other things.) But by all accounts Mesta was a real character, a renowned hostess and power broker in political circles in Washington in the days when she was considered “just” a socialite, but which might also explain the ambassadorship ... It’s noted in testimony at the Watergate Grand Jury investigation into President Richard M Nixon in June 1975
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that he said: “Perle Mesta wasn’t sent to Luxembourg because she had big bosoms. Perle Mesta went to Luxembourg because she made a good contribution.” Mesta was born in Michigan, to a father who had become a wealthy oilman and hotelier in 1889. She married a steel magnate and engineer in 1916 but was widowed just nine years later, inheriting his substantial $78 million fortune. In today’s terms that would make the 30-something widow a dollar billionaire. Having moved to Washington in 1940, Mesta was active in the National Woman’s Movement, using her social events to network with figures in contemporary society, the arts, theatre and movies as well as politics. A firm believer in the Equal Rights Amendment which was intended
Apparently Irving Berlin was so impressed by her that he wrote the hit musical Call Me Madam starring Ethel Merman in 1952! Perle Mesta also graced the cover of TIME magazine in 1949 in recognition of her ambassadorship and diplomatic skills. That wasn’t the only time she formed the basis of a character: Wikipedia states that Mesta was the title character played by Shirley Booth in the Playhouse 90 feature The Hostess with the Mostess in 1957, while in a 2009 essay by Thomas Mallon, she was identified as a model for the character Dolly Harrison in Allen Drury’s 1959 novel Advise and Consent. So that explains a bit about the Black Russian cocktail’s inspiration but what about the White Russian?
“I’m the Dude, so that’s what you call me. That or, uh His Dudeness, or uh Duder, or El Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.” to do away with discrimination against women, she lobbied actively for women’s rights. Harry Truman benefited from her political patronage and is one of the reasons why, after his election as President in 1944, he appointed her the first ever American ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949, a post she held until 1953.
The cocktail is exactly the same as the Black Russian (5 parts vodka, ice, with 2 parts Kahlua) but simply with the addition of cream, which changes both the colour and the flavour of the drink. It is reputed to have been created in the 1960s and it doesn’t have any great inspiration behind it.
