A plush after-dinner pour that drinks like dessert, its equal measures of gin, crème de cacao and cream shaken to a pale, silky froth. The chocolate and dairy soften the gin's juniper until only a faint botanical edge shows through the sweetness, and a dusting of nutmeg brings warm spice to every sip.
Garnish: Grated Nutmeg
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Add the gin, crème de cacao, and cream to a shaker filled with ice.
shake
Shake vigorously until well chilled and frothy.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass.
garnish
Dust the surface with freshly grated nutmeg.
The recipe first appeared in print in Hugo Ensslin's 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks, and Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book carried it in 1930 as Alexander Cocktail No. 1. Who devised it remains unsettled — in 1929 columnist Walter Winchell credited Troy Alexander, a bartender at Rector's, with mixing a white drink for a Phoebe Snow dinner tied to railroad advertising; other tellings connect it to Princess Mary's London wedding in 1922; and critic Alexander Woollcott maintained the name was his, though Ensslin's earlier recipe mentions none of these. Over time a brandy-based version overtook the gin original and came to be known as the Brandy Alexander.