Boxcar
Boxcar by Lawton Mackall
I’ll start this toast to the award winning “slammed car” puzzle box with an old classic cocktail called the White Lady. Bear with me and we will eventually get to our actual destination, but I like to take the scenic route. Harry MacElhone was one of the more famous bartenders of the golden age, and invented any number of well-known, perfectly turned out classics still celebrated to this day. But even Harry had his prototypes. Take the White Lady, named after a popular rose of the times, in the aftermath of World War I, when Harry was getting his start in London after serving in His Majesty’s Forces. It was a sickly sweet concoction of Cointreau, crème de menthe, and lemon.
Ten years later you would find Harry finally in his true element, at the famous Harry’s New York Bar (in Paris, of course – it was Prohibition in New York, after all). He revised the drink, and the true White Lady, a well balanced mix of gin, Cointeau, lemon, and egg white, was born anew. This is the drink still popular today.
Alexander Lawton Mackall was the “POTABLES” writer for Esquire Magazine during the 1930’s and 40’s, and knew MacElhone’s drinks well. He is credited with creating a slightly modified version called the “Boxcar”, in which the lemon is switched for lime, a dash of grenadine is added, and the works are served up in a sugar rimmed glass. It remains another great classic, simple and tasty, but rather more obscure, until now. Because I would be hard pressed to find a more appropriately named cocktail to pair with this puzzle box car. I can vouch that the drink does indeed go well with Juno’s award winning creation, and I will add that this is the only circumstance when I would advocate drinking and driving. If you are lucky enough to find yourself behind the wheel of one of these beauties, buckle up – you’ll be in for the ride of your life! Cheers.
This couple auto get a room
Boxcar adapted from Harry MacElhone by Lawton Mackall, c. 1935
2 oz gin
½ oz Cointreau
½ oz lime
1 dash grenadine
½ oz egg white
Shake together without then with ice and strain into a favorite vehicle. Sugar rim the steering wheel in order to be authentic, and buckle up.