The Last Word Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What gin is best for Last Word? ›

Gin contains 40% alcohol by volume and 97 calories per 1.5 ounce shot. The best gins to use in the Last Word co*cktail are London Dry Gin, Beefeater, and Tanqueray.

Add the gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice into a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a brandied cherry (optional).

It's a magical combination of gin, Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice that boasts both sweet and sour notes, as well as a deeply complex herbaceous bitter flavor. The Last Word originates back to 1915, just a few years before Prohibition.

With: Equal parts rye, Yellow Chartreuse, Benedictine and lemon juice. We say: The robust flavours of rye combine harmoniously with the other ingredients. With: Equal parts mezcal, Italian red aperitivo, Yellow Chartreuse, and lime juice.

Fast-forward to the present day, and the Last Word is a fully revived classic, gracing the bar menus in cities around the globe. More popular now than it ever was in its youth, the Last Word is a surprisingly tasty balance of four ingredients —gin, lime, Maraschino, and green Chartreuse— working in perfect unison.

Substitutions. If you're looking for a substitute for maraschino, Cherry Heering and kirsch are your best options. Kirsch is a clear cherry brandy that has a similar bitterness to maraschino because it also includes the pits in production.

The Last Word consists of equal amounts of gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and freshly pressed lime juice, which are combined in a shaker with ice. After shaking, the mix is poured through a co*cktail strainer and served straight up.

We're calling our Last Word variation “Buzzword” (pun intended!) We kept the Green Chartreuse and lime, but switched out the gin for white rum, the maraschino for Chareau and added a spoonful of mint syrup.

In the animated holiday special “Frosty the Snowman,” what were Frosty's last words? “I'll be back again someday.”

Who invented the Last Word co*cktail? ›

A pre-Prohibition, gin-based gem.

Ted Saucier, author of 1951 co*cktail manual Bottoms Up! attributes the invention to vaudeville monologist Frank Fogarty, whose wit often earned him the last laugh.

Dolin Génépy: This popular liqueur is probably the most common substitute for our favorite spirit; my husband and I taste-tested Dolin Génépy side-by-side with both Green Chartreuse and Yellow Chartreuse and found it a very suitable substitute for either, particularly Yellow.

Yellow Chartreuse is sweeter than Green Chartreuse. Yellow Chartreuse is noted with flavors of honey, saffron, and anise spice, whereas Green Chartreuse shows more prominent flavors of lime, citrus spice, and fresh cut herbs.

Because of the diverse flavors in this drink, it pairs nicely with a wide variety of food. We've especially been loving this co*cktail during the summer though, alongside dishes with lime juice and fresh herbs; it's the perfect complement to the lime and Green Chartreuse in the drink.

Now gin has botanicals of its own, so you don't want to introduce an ingredient that will clash with the spirit's inherent flavour. One way to circumvent this is by using a quality London Dry Gin (think Tanqueray or Gordon's) that is more neutral and therefore perfect for these sorts of infusions.

A staple for a reason, Beefeater's London Dry gin works elegantly in Negronis and other gin classics, like Martinis. Eloy Pacheco, head bartender at New York City's Dante, especially appreciates the spirit's coriander, lemon zest and pine-juniper flavors.

It appears Snoop Dogg's two favorite gins at the time were Seagram's and Tanqueray, both classic London dry gins. Therefore, it's a safe bet that in order to make an authentic Gin and Juice, one should reach for a familiar and affordable juniper-forward gin.