Drink In History - The Pink Lady

Pink Lady By Lanee Lee

THE

HERSTORY IN THE MAKING. THE BADASS BEAUTY WITH A TWO-SUCKER PUNCH.

The great-grandmother of the Cosmopolitan, the Pink Lady was the original ‘ladies’ drink. Just like the Sex in the City crew was synonymous with Cosmos, trendy, high-society women from the 1930s to 1950s ordered Pink Lady as their go-to party drink.

Despite its rosy hue and fluffy white finish, it’s certainly not cutesy and it’s not to be dismissed, despite its sexist criticism. Made of gin, applejack, lemon and pomegranate grenadine with an egg white finish, the Pink Lady is boldly unapologetic and elegantly balanced—an admirable achievement for anyone as old as the Pink Lady.

The pomegranate grenadine and lemon lend an intoxicating sweet and sour umami note to offset the boozy bedfellows of gin and applejack. The egg white topper is like gift wrapping the drink in white satin sheets. As Madonna sang in the song Express Yourself, “Satin sheets are very romantic, but what happens when you’re not there.” Due to its spirit-forward traits, the Pink Lady begs the same question.

The drink’s popularity rose just after women won the right to vote and before major female equality moments, like the Equal Pay act, Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine, and most recently, the “Me Too” movement. It’s said the silverscreen siren, Jayne Mansfield, sipped on it as her preferred predinner drink. And supposedly socialite interior architect Elsie de Wolfe created it and named it after a popular Broadway show of 1911, “The Pink Lady”. Also in the early 1910s, the Pink Lady made its first appearance in print in the 1913 Manual of Mixed Drinks by Jacques Straub.

Roughly three decades later, critics dismissed it due to its alleged "female" nature. In Esquire’s 1949 Handbook for Hosts, the Pink Lady is listed in the "Something for the Girls" section. But at least the men’s magazine—credited for creating the ‘bachelor’s lifestyle’— deemed it fit to print. A decade earlier in 1939, Pink Lady landed on Esquire’s “10 Worst Drinks” list.

Interestingly, the Clover Club cocktail, a pink cocktail with similar ingredients minus the applejack and swapping pomegranate for raspberry, was considered a gentleman’s drink in private clubs. In fact, writer Y.B. Yeats was known to down them with unabashed flair. Some speculate that after WWII and subsequent baby boom, department stores started to market the color blue for baby boys and pink for baby girls. So, perhaps it wasn’t sexism, per se, but bad timing and colorism that caused the Pink Lady so much grief in the press.

But now is the time to think pink and embrace her. She’s a badass beauty to behold. And she’s making a comeback, albeit under a pseudonym.

So, the next time you see “The Secret Cocktail” on a menu, it’s the Pink Lady winking back at you. Like all strong female characters, they always find a way to survive and thrive—no matter what.

T he Pink Lady

INGREDIENTS

1 ½ oz. gin ½ oz. applejack ½ oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice ½ oz. grenadine 1 egg white Maraschino cherry (for garnish)

PREPARATION

In a shaker filled with ice, add ingredients. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.