Reliable Source announces cocktail menu for presidential debate viewing party

The Reliable Source Presidential Cocktail Menu

Democrats

Daiquiri (John F. Kennedy) $8

1.5 ounces white rum
½ ounce fresh lime juice
½ oz simple syrup

Shake well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass or coupe (wider-styled Champagne glass)

President John F. Kennedy (1961-63) sipped Daiquiris on the evening of Election Day, 1960, watching the returns and coming to learn he’d become the 35th President of the United States.

Dry Gin Martini (Franklin D. Roosevelt) $8

2 oz London dry gin
1 oz dry vermouth
1 olive
1 tsp olive brine

Stir all ingredients in mixing glass with plenty of ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with olive

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45) loved a good dry Martini, as did his chief World War II ally, Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, when FDR served one to Russian dictator Josef Stalin at the Yalta Peace Conference, Stalin claimed it was “cold on the stomach.” FDR used to work until around 7:15 p.m. then would commence cocktail hour in the “Oval Study,” as it was then known. According to his wife Eleanor, “If truth be known, Franklin used to make the most terrible Martinis. ... However, people drank them with zest because he had made them.”

Old Fashioned (Harry Truman) $8

2 oz bourbon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Dash water
1-2 dashes Angostura bitters

Muddle sugar and bitters, add bourbon and ice, stir, serve. Garnish with orange peel and cherry.

On April 12, 1945, Harry Truman (1945-53) was the newly-installed Vice President. He was sipping bourbon in House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s office when he was urgently summoned to the White House. First Lady Eleanor informed Truman that President Roosevelt had died that morning in Warm Spring, Georgia, and Truman was now the 33rd president. Flustered, Truman asked her “is there anything I can do for you?” She replied, “Is there anything we can do for you, you're the one in trouble now.” At the White House, Harry and his wife Bess loved their Old Fashioneds in the evenings, with as little sugar as possible.


Republicans

Dewars on the Rocks (James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison) $8

2-3 oz Dewar’s Whisky

Serve in a rocks glass with ice.

President James Garfield (1881) spent less than a year in office, but as an inauguration present, industrialist Andrew Carnegie sent a case of Dewar’s to the White House. Carnegie also sent the same present to Benjamin Harrison (1889-93), whose thank you note to Carnegie read: “It was nice of you to think of me as to needing a ‘brace’ this winter in dealing with congress.”

Gin & Tonic (Dwight David Eisenhower) $8

2 oz London dry gin
4 oz tonic water

Serve on the rocks in a highball glass, garnish with a lime wedge.

While commanding the Allied Expeditionary Force in England, prior to D-Day in June 1944, Ike is said to have drank Gin & Tonics in a pub.

Mai Tai (Richard M. Nixon) $8

2 ounce dark rum
1 oz light rum
1 oz fresh lime juice
½ oz orange curacao
¼ oz simple syrup
¼ oz orgeat syrup
This cocktail is shaken and served over crushed ice with a mint sprig as garnish, also a straw.

Richard Nixon (1969-74) loved Trader Vic’s, birthplace of the Mai Tai, and he would often sneak out of the White House to visit the Trader Vic’s at the corner of 16th and K Streets, NW (inside the Hilton Hotel). According to Wall Street Journal columnist Eric Felten, “the Mai Tai became something of the official drink of the Nixon presidency, much to the consternation of some.”