The 826: A Cocktail to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Certification of the 19th Amendment

Last week, on August 18th, lots of people celebrated the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

However, as a legal matter, women could not actually vote until August 26th of that year.

The ratification had to be certified by the Secretary of State (Bainbridge Colby) before it became an Amendment to the Constitution, and he did so on August 26th.

Today, August 26, 2020 is the actual 100th anniversary. On this day, exactly 100 years ago, women were officially, legally allowed to vote throughout the United States.

I wanted to create a recipe for some food or other that would be a fitting tribute to the determination, steadfastness and grit of the women who worked hard, were abused, ridiculed, scorned, arrested, beaten and who otherwise struggled to make this Amendment happen.

But nothing seemed to be good enough.

So I switched gears and decided to concoct a cocktail, even though, ironically, 1920 was also the year that Prohibition went into effect.

This was not hard work folks!

Although it did take several tries.

A most enjoyable time had I testing to make sure all the ingredients were finely attuned.

Which they are.

This is quite a lovely libation if I say so myself!

So, here, in honor of Women’s Suffrage, to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the certification of 19th Amendment, is my special cocktail, “The 826,” to mark the day.

Make one of these and see for yourself what I mean. And next time you’re at a cocktail party, ask for The 826 and send the bartender over to this page for the recipe.

Most important: don’t take the 19th Amendment for granted. It took hard work, persistence and determination to get it. So make sure you VOTE.

The 826

• Ice cubes

• 6 tablespoons pineapple-orange juice (or use pineapple or orange juice)

• 1/4 cup dark rum

• 1/4 cup cranberry juice

• 1 tablespoon grenadine

• 1 teaspoon lime juice

• 1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice

• Maraschino cherry

Place 6-8 ice cubes in a cocktail shaker. Add the pineapple juice, rum, cranberry juice, grenadine, lime juice and maraschino cherry juice. Shake several times, then either strain through a strainer into cocktail glasses or pour with ice cubes into old fashioned glasses. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Makes one big or two small drinks

Ruth Bader Ginger Cocktail

A few weeks ago my daughter Meredith told me to check a post on Buzzfeed, in which Amanda McCall blogged about how Ben & Jerry's could solve its "woman problem."

What? Woman problem? Isn't this the company known for its progressive views on social and political issues?

Yes, but.

The company has no ice cream flavor named after a woman. There are, and have been, many flavors named after men. Like Cherry Garcia and Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream and the new Tonight Dough, named for the one-year anniversary of Jimmy Fallon's gig on The Tonight Show.

For what it's worth -- are you listening Ben & Jerry's? -- we women want some recognition!

And we actually eat more ice cream than men.

Ms. McCall said she realizes that creating a new "woman" ice cream won't help the gender pay gap, nor will it help more women win elective office, but it can't hurt, can it?

One of the flavors she suggested is Ruth Bader Ginger. In fact, if you agree, you can sign a petition urging the company to get to it.

Food writer that I am, I thought about creating my own Ruth Bader Ginger ice cream. I've taken cues from the company before -- I invented a version of Ben & Jerry's Charoset ice cream because that flavor is only available in Israel and I wanted to try some for Passover. 

But if Ben & Jerry's does this, it would make headlines and history. If I do it? Not so much.

Besides, I had a particularly hectic weekend recently and so I decided to relax with a nice stiff drink and opted to invent a cocktail, rather than an ice cream, to honor Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And it was amazingly good.

I believe it would be even more marvelous with a little dollop of Ruth Bader Ginger Ice Cream in it too.

But for now -- The Ruth Bader Ginger Cocktail.

In honor of one of the most brilliant, thoughtful and progressive Supreme Court Justices of all time.

The Ruth Bader Ginger Cocktail

• 4-6 ice cubes

• 3 ounces dark rum

• 1 ounce ginger liqueur or brandy

• 2 teaspoons orange juice

• 2-3 pinches ground cardamom

• 2 slices of orange

• 2 mint leaves, slightly crushed

Place 2-3 ice cubes in each of 2 glasses. Place the rum, brandy, orange juice and cardamom in a cocktail shaker or glass jar. Shake vigorously and pour equal amounts in the two glasses. Twist the orange slices slightly to extract a few drops more of orange juice into the liquid, then place the slice on the rim of the each glass. Place one slightly crushed mint leaf in each glass, stir and serve. 

Makes 2 (or one, depending on your mood)

Mai Tai

All the snow this winter got me to thinking about the beach.

I don’t actually love the beach. I have very fair, freckled skin and spent my youth getting red and sunburned, then peeling, then back to very fair and freckled. Never got a tan. What was the point of even trying?

But beach sounds good when it’s 18 degrees out and there is a foot of snow on your lawn and more coming.

Ed and I did take short beach vacations occasionally. And it’s those I was thinking about in the past couple of days. Those days away gave us a chance to sleep late, do nothing and drink more than usual for 3 or 4 days. Not that we drink much when we’re home.

But on one particular occasion when we were really really tired and needed a good rest, we took ourselves to the Bahamas and on the first full day there we sat ourselves down at the beach at 10:30 a.m. and some nice woman came over and asked if she could get us something to drink. By 10:45 we downed our first Mai Tai.

If you’ve never had a Mai Tai, let me just say, they are potent. Especially if you start drinking them at 10:45 a.m. Even if they are watered down at a resort bar.

A real Mai Tai is made with rum, orange Curacao, lime juice, sugar syrup and orgeat, which is an almond flavored syrup. At beach resorts they sometimes add pineapple and/or orange juice.

I don’t know if the Mai Tais we drank were authentic or not. They tasted good. They must have because Ed told the woman to come back every hour with another round and so by the time we left the beach in the afternoon we had had, let’s say, quite a few and were feeling pretty merry. We had french fries for dinner and called it a day.

The original Mai Tai may have been a creation of Victor Bergeron Jr. (Trader Vic). He said that he concocted the drink at his Oakland, California restaurant in the 1940s and when he served it to some Tahitian friends they said “Mai Tai Roa Ae,” which apparently means “this stuff is beyond wonderful” or “out of this world” or “the best” and that’s how the cocktail got its name.

Vic’s competitor during the Polynesian food and drink trend (popular post World War II), was a man named Ernest Gantt (who changed it to Donn Beach), and he said he invented it at his restaurant, Don the Beachcomber, back in the 1930s.

I don’t care who was first. I’ll leave that debate to the men’s heirs.

All I know is, this tastes really out of this world and I have a feeling there will be one in my near future.

Mai Tai

1 ounce light rum

3/4 ounce lime juice

1/2 ounce Orange Curacao or Triple Sec

1/4 ounce sugar syrup

1/4 ounce orgeat

1 cup crushed ice or about 12 ice cubes

1 ounce dark rum

mint sprig

Place the light rum, lime juice, Curacao, syrup, orgeat in a cocktail shaker filled with the ice. Shake vigorously. Pour the mixture into a tumbler. Pour the dark rum on top, stir gently. Add a sprig of mint for garnish.

Makes one