The Last Word Is the First Step
Everyone’s got a friend who loves having the last word. Let me tell ya, it’s overrated. At best, it’s the punctuation to a riveting conversation. Whoever does get the last word must live in the following shadow of silence. How about we opt for the cocktail instead of winning the debate? Drink in the last word by drinking The Last Word. Relax your mind and take a sip of a cocktail so sharp, it will make you realize why cocktails exist in the first place. Composition, balance, and zing.
Conversations, like jaunts in other cities, are best savored for the journey. I first had The Last Word, the hue of a milky jade stone, in the much revered and now closed SoHo haunt, The Pegu Club. The plush carpet and latticed screens reminded me of the muted noir aesthetic from the entertaining (and surely flawed) Rush Hour franchise.
While the Pegu Club lends its name to an equally fabled cocktail—“The Pegu Club”—its most championed drink was The Last Word. Still, it isn’t where the cocktail was resurrected from the graveyard of prohibition. As storied as its name suggests, it was a pre-Prohibition era libation that flourished leading up to World War II, then fell into obscurity.
I loved it so much I went down a wiki wormhole to find it was brought back to life at the Zig Zag café, in a treelined alleyway steps above the historic Pike Place Market. The drink inspired my first trip to Seattle. Three bookstores, a misty 5k along Alaskan Way on the city’s waterfront, a few deer sightings at 7,000 feet up Mt. Rainier, one of the best shots of espresso I’ve ever had, and a few underground grunge bars later, I had a newfound appreciation for the Pacific Northwest. And, of course, more than a few classic versions of The Last Word.
Equal parts gin, green chartreuse, fresh lime juice, and maraschino liqueur, its flavors shade the drinker like a pine tree born for alpine napping. Trying to decipher it reduces the mystery. A combination of citrus, herby, and grassy notes culminate in a complexity reaching for earl grey, but stopping short of lavender.
The Last Word is a litmus test. Imagine your friendly neighborhood flâneur hopping from bar to bar, annoying bartenders with mixology pop quizzes. Okay, maybe not to that degree. But I do find that a bar that can produce one, is a better bar overall. Look, I love divey shitholes and hellscapes with woodgrain bartops since the Pleistocene (the only reason they aren’t in the fossil record is because of a thing called varnish). But we’re not totally there yet. So, sure, you can take a shot of Cuervo and slam a PBR like you’re at a no-name bar in Alphabet City (the one with the red neon sign that just says “BAR”), but why? The $7 that you'd normally shell out goes a long way at home.
For eighty greenbacks (seems hefty, but, trust me, play the long game) you can pick up a classic bottle of gin ($30), Green Chartreuse ($25), Maraschino Liqueur ($20), and a bag of limes ($5). By my trigonometric calculations (including some spillage), you should be able to squeeze out about twenty drinks. That’s $4/drink or one massive fish taco from a food truck in the back of a converted warehouse in Willysburg. Take your pick.
And while this time, I am that friend who gets the last word, I won’t take up too much of your time: If you’re looking to up your cocktail game at home, The Last Word is the first step.
Chaser:
Instead of the classic served up style, I like to strain mine over a large whiskey cube in a rocks glass. Get whiskey cubes. A little fancy, but you deserve it this year.
