Bacardi Cocktail

No other cocktail has ever made it to a supreme court, though Hunter S. Thompson did manage to get at least one drink cited in an affidavit. But for the Bacardi Cocktail, it was no minor mention in some random court ruling. Instead, the drink's very recipe was up for debate, and in 1936 this heated New York case not only defined the drink's formula but made it a legal offense to mix the cocktail without Bacardi rum.

Nowadays, the New York Supreme Court's ruling suggests missed common sense, or a severe lack of work in the lower courts. But those of us privy to hindsight should keep in mind that Prohibition affected imbibers' sensibility long into repeal. Although always considered a subtle sophisticate, the Bacardi Cocktail became especially en vogue during Prohibition, as the drink of those who could afford to be elsewhere during the drought. "After 1919, Havana became the unofficial US saloon - a hive of hotels, casinos, and brothels," Magdalena Casero, curator of the Bacardi Museum in Miami, Florida, told us. "Bars like Sloppy Joe's and La Floridita became famous, and Bacardi became among the best known of their forbidden fruits." During the Noble Experiment even drinkers trapped on dry land became comfortable shaking 1 3/4 ounces bootlegged rum with 3/4 ounce lime juice, a barspoon of simple syrup, and a dash of grenadine - all the while calling the concoction a Bacardi Cocktail. Many of those who disagreed with the Bacardi company's lawsuit pointed to that careless habit of illicit imbibers, insisting that by Prohibition's end in 1933, an order for a Bacardi Cocktail no longer implied a request for its namesake spirit.

The Bacardi family soon became tired of missing out on well-deserved profits and watching its name become the generic term for a rum cocktail, particularly in Manhattan, where bartenders commonly advertised the drink by name but mixed it however they pleased. Besides, as Ms. Casero points out, "The Bacardi Cocktail was promoted as a sophisticated drink," and the use of other rums was slighting that reputation. Pointing to the drink's long heritage, she tells of its lineage: "The version without grenadine was named by an American mining engineer, Jennings Cox, after the mining area east of Santiago that had been the landing place for American troops in the Spanish-American War." So to set the record straight - or at least to gain a restraining order that prevented anyone from serving the Bacardi Cocktail without its original rum - the Bacardi company took the case to court in 1936, and the ruling became the envy of the liquor industry. Aside from all the press the case generated, the Bacardi company ran billboards throughout the United States stating the New York Supreme Court ruling. Soon enough, the popularity of the Bacardi Cocktail moved farther west, lasting on into the era of the fern bar.

We're not certain how the good officers of New York enforced the proper mixing of the Bacardi Cocktail. But with the serious ruling that "the Court finds as a clear, preponderating, and even that which would be exacted in a criminal situation, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bacardi rum left out of a Bacardi Cocktail is not a Bacardi Cocktail, and that otherwise it is a subterfuge and fraud," we can only suspect that the men in blue tried their damnedest. Now, 70 or so years later, Bacardi rum is no longer considered an import up for substitution. In fact, it's now as common as any spirit found in the well, and fortunately, the Bacardi Cocktail isn't above being found at any bar. We order it when the taste of another drink seems too severe, or when we're faced with an untested mixer who may need the sweetness of grenadine to temper a lack of skill. But unlike Bacardi Cocktail drinkers of yesteryear, we've never had a bartender swap the called-for rum with anything else, though we'd welcome the chance to finally put this information to good use.

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