Clinton Cawood dusts off an old friend you might not have tried: the Old Pal.
Acknowledging the fact that the Boulevardier isn’t, despite appearances, a Negroni twist, let’s begin with the understanding that the Old Pal – rye whiskey, dry vermouth and Campari – is likely, if anything, a riff on the former, not the latter. And despite credit for its creation often being given to Harry McElhone, the famed owner of Harry's New York Bar in Paris attributed it in his 1930 book Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails to “‘Sparrow’ Robertson, Sporting Editor of the New York Herald, Paris”.
The confusion comes from an obscure essay in another McElhone book, Barfl ies & Cocktails from 1927, in itself attributed to an Arthur Moss – and incidentally the same tract that identified Erskine Gwynne as the creator of the aforementioned Boulevardier. In these Cocktails Round Town pages, Moss intersperses accounts of cocktails with an equal measure of red herring. The story of the Old Pal – with Canadian Club and ‘Eyetalian Vermouth’ – is dated 30 February, for a start…
Far more recently, in the mid-2000s, US bartender Evan Harrison created the Perfect Pal at The Independent in Somerville, Massachusetts, with 1oz each of rye and Aperol, 0.5oz each of dry and sweet vermouth, and a dash of orange bitters.
PERFECT PAL (EVAN HARRISON)
Glass: Rocks Garnish: Orange twist expressed and discarded
Method: Stirred and served down
• 60ml rye whiskey
• 60ml Aperol
• 30ml dry vermouth
• 30ml sweet vermouth
• Dash of orange bitters