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Hall
of
Fame
"Gin Rickey." However, that Bar could justly claim
no such honor; nor, as a matter of fact, could any spot
in New York, though the man for whom the drink was
named was long one of the Bar's most familiar figures.
Part of posterity has known him as Colonel "Jim"
Rickey. His name was not Jim, but Joe. Colonel Joe
Rickey had been a lobbyist in Washington, and as such
used to buy drinks for members of Congress in the days
before they had come to depend upon the discreet ac–
tivities of gentlemen in green hats to keep them wet
while they voted dry. During a spell of torrid weather,
the brain of one of the barkeepers at Shoemaker's, a
famous drinking place,
expand~d
to such an extent that
he invented a new drink-by squeezing limes into gin,
?-nd hosing the result with a siphon. Colonel Rickey
was one of his favorite patrons, and as he was the first
man who happened in after the birth of the concoction,
the "barkeep" announced to him that he had perfected
what in those days was an equivalent of a "wow," and
would he try it?
Colonel Rickey was "agreeable." He quickly tossed
off the offering, smacked his lips, announced that it
"hit the spot," and demanded another. Whereupon the
barman denominated the drink the "Gin Rickey:" Sub–
sequent years saw the invention of the "Rye Rickey"
and the "Scotch Rickey."
Colonel Rickey was said to be the first importer of
limes, in quantity, into this country. His activities in
that direction may have antedated the invention of the
Gin Rickey, as described, or it may have been that the
compliment paid him by the Washington bartender de-
[ 39]