Royal Cocktail — The Cocktail Ontologist

Variants (5)

Bartender's Manual by Theodore Proulx (1888, p.34) — Theodore Proulx 1888

	Peychaud's bitters — pepsin or Peychaud bitters	base
	Seltzer water — seltzer	dilution
1 jigger	vermouth — vermouth	modifier
1 lump	ice — ice	other
0.5 teaspoon	sugar — pulverized sugar	sweetener

Put the bitters and pulverized sugar into a bowl champagne glass.
Fill the glass half full with seltzer.
Hold a lump of ice above the glass with pinchers and pour the vermouth over the ice into the glass.

Ice: 1 lump

Summary: A showy vermouth-and-seltzer drink where the pour over ice is part of the display.

Royal Cocktail is useful because it shows vermouth service branching into visually performative sparkling service rather than staying only in stirred aperitif form.

The raised-ice pour is central to the look of the drink and is explicitly part of its attraction.

Compared with Martini, this is longer, lighter, and much more display-oriented.

The Buffet Blue Book by John H. Considine (1912, p.48)

2 dashes	Absinthe	base
0.5 large bar glass	ice	base
2 dashes	orange bitters	bitter
1 jigger	stomach bitters — Stomach Bitters	bitter
2 dashes	Maraschino	modifier
	sherry — Add sherry and serve; exact amount is OCR-soft.	modifier

Stir the ice, maraschino, orange bitters, absinthe, and Stomach Bitters in a large bar glass.
Add sherry, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve.

Ice: Ice

The sherry amount is OCR-soft and preserved conservatively.

Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo R. Ensslin (1917, p.29) — Ensslin 1917

0.5 juice	Lemon juice (fresh) — Juice of 1/2 Lemon	acid
1 jigger	dry gin — El Bart Gin	base
1 whole	egg	base
0.5 teaspoonful	sugar — Powdered Sugar	sweetener

Shake well in a mixing glass with cracked ice.
Strain and serve in a Fifth Avenue glass.

Ice: Cracked ice

This matters because it preserves a plain egg-and-gin royal branch before later categories tidy such drinks into narrower families.

The whole egg is central to the drink's texture and identity, not an incidental embellishment.

Harry of Ciro's ABC of Mixing Cocktails by Harry of Ciro's (1923, p.73) — Hotel Royal, Nice

0.5 glass	gin	base
1 cherry	Cherry — Serve with cherry.	garnish
0.5 glass	cherry brandy — Cherry Brandy	modifier
0.5 glass	French vermouth — French Vermouth	modifier
1 dash	Maraschino	modifier

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass with a cherry.

Garnish: Cherry

This matters because it preserves a named Riviera hotel branch in the London 1923 aperitif field.

The small maraschino accent is the key differentiator from plainer gin-vermouth-cherry structures.

Barflies and Cocktails by Harry McElhone and Wynn (1927, p.69) — Hotel Royal, Nice, 1908 attribution

0.33 part	gin	base
0.33 part	cherry brandy — Cherry Brandy	modifier
0.33 part	French vermouth — French Vermouth	modifier
1 dash	Maraschino	modifier

Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass with a cherry.

Garnish: Cherry

This matters because it preserves a named Riviera hotel-bar aromatic branch inside McElhone's later canon.

See also: Rose Cocktail, Martini Cocktail