ford cocktail

1/2 jigger Old Tom Gin (1 oz Ransom)
1/2 jigger Dry Vermouth (1 oz Noilly Prat)
3 dash Benedictine (1 barspoon)
3 dash Orange Bitters (Angostura Orange)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Last Wednesday, I was looking through George J. Kappeler's Modern American Drinks when I spotted the Ford Cocktail that seemed like it would make good use of the Ransom Old Tom Gin we bought just a short while ago. I was quite curious as to what Ford the drink was named after for the book was published in 1895, one year before Henry Ford completed his self-propelled Quadricycle. And of course, President Gerald Ford would not even have been born for almost two more decades. My searching uncovered that Ted Haigh had already confronted this issue. Ted surmised that the drink could have been named for Malcolm Webster Ford, the "famed champion athlete, journalist, and great-grandson of Noah Webster." The Ford family lived in New York and perhaps would have been gossip-worthy in the nearby Holland House where Kappeler tended bar.
The Ford Cocktail greeted my nose with orange oil and spice; the botanical notes seemed to be derived more from the Benedictine than the Old Tom though. On the tongue, the sip was herbal and woody with an almost orange pith flavor, and the swallow contained a lot of spice and orange notes. The most notable pairing was how the sharp note of the Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth complemented the botanicals in the Ransom Old Tom Gin. Overall, the drink was pretty dry but surprisingly flavorful given the recipe's modified Martini base.