The Last Word (cocktail)

“The Last Word” is a classic cocktail, said by Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up (1951) to have originated in the 1920s by bartender Frank Fogarty, at the Detroit Athletic Club. The cocktail was rediscovered by Seattle bartender Murray Stenson of Zig Zag Café, and it became one of Seattle’s favorite cocktails in the 2000s.
 
Rachel Maddow mixed a “The Last Word” cocktail on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on May 20, 2011, just before the prophesied end of the world on May 21, 2011. The cocktail contains gin, fresh lime juice, maraschino liqueur and green Chartreuse.
 
   
Zig Zag Café (Seattle, WA)
HOUSE COCKTAILS
Last Word
Gin, Green Charteuse, Maraschino, Lime
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Bottoms up
Author: Ted Saucier
Publisher: New York, Greystone Press [1951]
   
The Cocktail Chronicles
The Last Word
Posted on April 13th, 2006 by Paul  
“This cocktail was introduced around here about thirty years ago by Frank Fogarty, who was very well known in vaudeville. He was called the ‘Dublin Minstrel,’ and was a very fine monologue artist.”
 
So wrote Ted Saucier in 1951 when introducing this drink in Bottoms Up. Saucier credits the drink to the Detroit Athletic Club, and if the bartender’s recollection is correct, that would place the Last Word as a Prohibition-era cocktail.
 
Seattle (WA) Times
Originally published March 11, 2009 at 12:00 AM
The Last Word, a cocktail reborn in Seattle, is on everyone’s lips
When it comes to the revival of Prohibition-era cocktails, The Last Word is, well, the last word. Seattle mixologist Murray Stenson of Zig Zag Café is credited by many with repopularizing the chartreuse drink.
By Tan Vinh
Seattle Times staff reporter
(...)
Made with gin, fresh squeezed lime juice, maraschino liqueur and green Chartreuse, The Last Word is a balance of sweet-and-sour with a robust herbaceous tone.
(...)
The Last Word is a prohibition-era drink, which originated at the Detroit Athletic Club and had gotten lost over the decades.
 
Five years ago, Seattle bartender Murray Stenson discovered it while rifling through old cocktail manuals for obscure drinks to put on the menu at Zig Zag Café.
 
Considered one of America’s top bartenders, Stenson found The Last Word in “Bottoms Up!” by Ted Saucier, a 1951 bartender’s guide that is so old it was bound together by packaging tape.
 
The Last Word
The Last Word
By Will Femia -  Fri May 20, 2011 9:03 PM EDT.
Equal parts:
•gin
•fresh lime juice
•maraschino liqueur (Rachel recommends Luxardo brand)
•green Chartreuse
Shake well with ice for longer than you think you need to, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.