| Arsenic and Old Lace | |
| Type: | Gin |
| Flaming: | no |
| Vodka: | no |
| Gin: | yes |
| Garnish: | Lemon peel |
| Drinkware: | coupe |
| Ingredients: |
|
| Prep: | Stir in a chilled glass. Can be shaken. Dilute as needed. |
Arsenic and Old Lace (also called the Attention Cocktail or the Atty) is a classic cocktail with its origins in the 1910's made with gin, crème de violette, dry vermouth and absinthe.
The first appearance of a cocktail with these four parts, albeit in equal quantities, was in Hugo Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks[1] published in 1917, called the "Attention Cocktail".
The 1930 edition of The Savoy Cocktail Book, a drink with those four ingredients, rebranded as the "Atty Cocktail" had ratios that more closely matched the modern Arsenic and Old Lace.[2]
"The Atty" first appears under the name "Arsenic and Old Lace" in 1941, published in the Cocktail Guide and Ladies' Companion[3] by former Broadway producer Crosby Gaige.[4] Around the same time, Joseph Kesselring's play Arsenic and Old Lace opened on Broadway in January 1941. The timing strongly implies a connection, though it is speculative to say whether Gaige was the one who renamed the cocktail.
A similar drink with orange juice in place of absinthe is called the "Jupiter cocktail".[5]