Faculty and Proctors
See what you think of that.' Traverson tasted it. Then
he swallowed it whole.
"'By God!' he said, 'you've really got something new!
That will make a big hit. Make me another and I will
take it back to that customer in the dining room. Bet
you'll sell a lot of them. Have you got plenty of oranges?
If
you haven't, you ,better stock up, because I'm going
to sell a lot of those cocktails during lunch.'
"Up to that time we never ·µsed more than one dozen
oranges per day in the Bar. I sent down to the storeroom
and got two dozen. The Storeroom keeper came up him–
self and wanted to know what I meant by ordering so
many oranges. 'What the hell are you going to do with
them?' he demanded. 'Well,' I said, 'maybe I will take
them home, if I can.' But I didn't.
"The demand for Bronx cocktails started that day.
Pretty soon we were using a whole case of oranges a day.
And then several cases.
"The name? No, it wasn't really named directly after
the borough or the river so-called. I had been at the
Bronx Zoo a day or two
b~fore,
and I saw, of course, a
lot of beasts I had never known.
Custom~rs
used to tell
me of the strange animals they saw after a lot of mixed
drinks. So when Traverson said to me, as he started to
take the drink in to the customer, 'What'll I tell him
is the name of this drink?' I thought of those animals,
and said: 'Oh, you can tell him it is a 'Bronx'.''
That original Bronx was later modified by other bar–
men, and the formula preserved in the book hereafter
to be liberally quoted, resembled Johnnie's invention
only as one cocktail might resemble another. And in-
[ 8
I )