Ingredients
- 1-1/2 ounces (1/3 gill, 4.5 cl) dry gin
- 1-1/2 ounces (1/3 gill, 4.5 cl) orange juice
(fresh squeezed makes it unimaginably good) - 1 teaspoon real pomegranate grenadine
- 1 teaspoon absinthe or pastis
(Pernod, Herbsaint, and Ricard all work.)
Shake vigorously in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a small cocktail glass.
Pa-Poose Grenadine, New Orleans circa 1950s. Pernod absinthe circa 1910, Booth's Gin circa 1933. Prohibition at its Worst, 1926. The Saloon in the Home, 1930.
The latter book made righteous fun of the Noble Experiment, pairing fervent temperance songs with cocktail recipes.
Prohibition turned out to be a boon to rebellious cocktail creation. The symbolic flagship of the Prohibition venue was undoubtedly Harry's Bar, which was far from American shores: I do not mean the famous one named after Harry Pickering in Venice, Italy, cozy and traditional as it might be, but rather the 1920s beehive of activity that was Harry McElhone's joint, Harry's New York Bar-situated, ironically, in Paris. This venue embodied the spirit of Gatsby, of flappers, and of moneyed Americans abroad. From this wellspring flowed the cocktail that, to my mind, is most associated with Prohibition, the Monkey Gland.
Veteran vaudevillian Billy Meyers sang of it in "Made a Monkey Out of Me," whose lyrics contain an extended double entendre: referring to how the drink presumably made you act and the procedure from which its name derived. This medical procedure, pioneered by Dr. Serge Voronoff and very au courant in Paris in the mid-twenties, involved transplanting a monkey testicle into male humans to "rejuvenate" them.
source:
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/cookbook/2009/vintage-spirits-cocktails/monkey-gland.html#ixzz3gMhVTMec...
Made a Monkey Out of Me
I always felt like eighty-three
Standing 'round like an old oak tree
But something wonderful happened to me;
Just wait and see.
A little operation
Filled me full of syncopation
And now I shout with glee!
(monkey screech) I'm just a monkey man.
I feel like a wild monkey
Looking for a chimpanzee.
(monkey screech) See this monkey talk.
Every day in every way
I'm getting better in my monkey walk.
(monkey screech) I'm wild as wild can be.
(monkey screech) So don't you monkey with me.
Since my recovery, the other day
I made a discovery, and that's why I say
Understand
It was a monkey gland
That made a monkey out of me.
"Made a Monkey Out of Me"
—Meyers, Black, and Schoebel
1923, Original Memphis Melody Boys featuring
Billy Meyers, the Original Monkey Man
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