Celebrity Drinks: What Is True and What Is Legend

Almost every classic cocktail has a famous name attached, and many of the stories have improved with each retelling. Here we sort them into three groups. Documented means there is a primary source, such as a letter, a book or an interview. Likely means several independent sources point the same way but the details vary. Legend means the story is good but unsupported.

Death in the Afternoon: Ernest Hemingway wrote the recipe himself, absinthe topped with iced Champagne, for the 1935 collection So Red the Nose.

Bloody Mary: Hemingway described his pitcher version in a 1947 letter, printed in his collected letters. He did not invent the drink, but he loved it.

Vesper: James Bond orders it in Ian Fleming's Casino Royale of 1953 and names it after Vesper Lynd. Fleming's inscription to his friend Ivar Bryce suggests it was Bryce who mixed the first one.

Hanky Panky: Ada Coleman, head bartender at the Savoy's American Bar, told in 1925 how she created the drink for the actor Charles Hawtrey.

Gin and Dubonnet: the Queen Mother's handwritten note about taking Dubonnet and gin on an outing was sold at auction in 2008.

Papa Doble: that Hemingway drank double daiquiris with grapefruit and maraschino at El Floridita in Havana is well documented. Exactly how the recipe came about, and whether it was his idea or the bartender's, is less certain.

Roosevelt's martini: Franklin D. Roosevelt mixed the drinks himself at his informal evening gatherings in the White House, according to his presidential library.

Kennedy's daiquiri: John F. Kennedy's liking for the daiquiri comes up in many sources. The recipe that circulates, with frozen limeade and falernum, is not confirmed.

Churchill's martini: that Winston Churchill only wanted to look at the vermouth bottle, or bow towards France, while pouring his gin is one of the most quoted drink stories. Nobody has been able to show a source for it.

Truman's Old Fashioned: the story that Bess Truman found the White House Old Fashioned tasted like fruit punch, until the butler simply poured bourbon over ice, is told often. The core may be true, but the lines are retold second and third hand.

Hemingway's diabetes: it is often said the Papa Doble had no sugar because Hemingway was diabetic. There is no support for that.

The Vesper at Dukes: the claim that a bartender at Dukes Hotel in London created the Vesper for Fleming does not add up, as he started there long after Fleming's death.

White Russian: the drink existed long before the film, but The Big Lebowski of 1998 made it a cult classic. The Dude drinks it throughout and sometimes calls it a Caucasian.

Cosmopolitan: Sex and the City made it the drink of the 90s. Who created it is disputed. Cheryl Cook in Miami and Toby Cecchini at The Odeon in New York are named most often, both in the second half of the 1980s.