Brandy Alexander

To vary the presentation, you can stir the brandy and créme de cacao together with ice, strain into a coupe, and layer the cream on top of the drink.

A common variation involves replacing the cream for ice cream.

Although the recipe calls for Cognac, as the recipe’s name implies, you can use other types of brandy.

A riff on the Alexander, which uses gin as its base spirit as opposed to brandy.

This cocktail is also known as the Alexander No. 2, and this is in fact the way it is named in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), the oldest reference we have for the recipe.

One story behind the creation of the Alexander comes from a newspaper clipping from the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1915. In it, we learn that it was created for the 1915 World Series (baseball) and named after Philadelphia’s pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander (1887-1950).

Alternatively, Walter Winchell, a New York Columnist, wrote in 1929 that the Alexander was created in New York’s Hotel Rector. Troy Alexander, one of the bartenders, developed the recipe for a dinner celebrating an advertising campaign.

The advertising campaign was centered around Phoebe Snow: A fictional character used in ads for a Railroad company which was promoting a clean-burning variety of coal. Soot from the trains was a big problem during this period and the commercials featured Ms. Snow in a pristine white dress.