09/24/2025
Another perfectly crafted cocktail from The Relic Lobby Bar
You would be forgiven for thinking youāve seen this before. On paper, the Quill looks merely like a plain olā Negroni with a rinse of absinthe. Your brain calculates the flavor quickly: the Negroniās bittersweetness plus a hint of anise-flavored liqueur, but in actuality, this cocktail is far more than the sum of its parts. The absinthe lends both brightness and depth to the drink, taking the classic Negroni into another dimension.Ā
The drink is included in an edition of Harry McElhoneās classic cocktail book āHarryās ABC of Mixing Cocktailsā that was updated in the 1990s, but it doesnāt appear in earlier ones. (The book was originally published in 1930.) The 1996 edition credits Frank C. Payne of New York with creating the drink. It seems Payne was a theatrical press agent who with his peers formed a union in the 1920s to represent their interests. This union published a magazine called The Quill.Ā
The cocktail by its same name may not possess the sort of literary history as, say, the Green Isaacās Special, or even Vesper, but thereās something fun about drinks inspired by works of the typewriter, pen or even, of course, quill.
Adapted from Liquor.com
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