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masculinity after dark.
It
would take a real expert or at least an
amateur of New York drinking habits to tell the hour of day from
the nature of the drinks being passed across the bar by Cookie and
his assistants. There are enough Martinis at midnight and a suf–
ficient flow of champagne at midday to addle the wits of the
un–
initiate.
As
has been suggested above, the midday clientele of the Stork
is considerably different from that say of such downtown resorts of
masculinity as the Recess Club or Whyte's in that the patrons are
predominantly feminine and, even in an age when women's .tastes
in drinks has begun to approximate if not exactly duplicate that of
men, the run of orders is more on the elaborate side than is likely
to he the case later in the day.
Glamourous and worldly Gloria Swanson, a celebrity unabashed
in
her
ta~tes
and determined on the best, likes to start the day with
what, within the memory of the author used to he known on the
Continent as "King's Ruin," because it was the traditional favorite
of so many of the old, bearded kings of Europe who used to
fre–
quent Foyot's, the Cafe de Paris, Maxim's and the Ritz in the days
when the going for kings was good. Miss Swanson prefers to call
it more elegantly a champagne cocktail even though she commands
it served in a tall Tom Collins glass:
Champagne Cocktail Gloria Swanson:
I
pint iced champagne, very
dry
2
oz. the best cognac
twist of lemon peel
Served in a tall Tom Collins glass with a
cube or two of ice.
Other schools of thought like the same drink in modified containers
and with a dash of Angostura Bitters and the author has seen it
44: Stork Club Bar