MARILYN MONROE, by all accounts, didn't much enjoy her sojourn to England in 1956. She was here to film the risible M box-office turkey The Prince And The Showgirl with an irascible Laurence Olivier, who earned Monroe's permanent opprobrium by demanding that she 'try and be sexy'. The film, by many accounts, aged the already hardly Hebe-esque looks of Olivier by 15 years.
Norma Jean (1926-1962) did find respite from the diurnal rigours of filming in a bar whose name alone would have been a tonic for her homesickness. Not that The Savoy's American Bar had ever approved much of tonic, or anything so otiose when it came to the making of cocktails.
The increasingly bibulous Monroe didn't sink the bar's 'Montgomery' creation-a hospital pass of a drink made with a 15:1 gin-to-vermouth ratio but Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) did, according to the bar's most venerated bartender Harry Craddock. The latter published The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 and it is still in print now.
Today, the American Bar serves up drinks of a potency that, although more than satisfying to neophyte cocktail sippers, might well be considered tap water by former guests including the aforementioned Hemingway, author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). "Tastes have absolutely changed since those days,' says Chelsie Bailey, current head bartender and only the third woman to have the role. 'I bought The Savoy Cocktail Book when I was 22 and just starting out as a career bartender but, I have to be honest, I think 80% of the recipes in there are terrible! They're not balanced and we don't have any of them on the menu today. American drinks, back in 1893, typically contained two or three different drinks, with very minimal dilution. Whereas, in Britain, we were drinking fortified wines and spirits with good measures of tonic waters and sodas.'
Denne historien er fra November 01, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 01, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds