Drink Before You Leap

As usual, the WSJ's Eric Felten has the perfect drink for the day (sub req):

One way to revive the date is to associate it with the drinking of a truly fine intercalary cocktail--the Leap Year, a drink invented by the great American barman Harry Craddock, who rode out Prohibition by plying his trade at London's Savoy Hotel. Broadway gossip-columnist Karl K. Kitchen caught up with Craddock in the summer of 1928 and praised the bartender as a "silver-haired genius." Anyone could knock out Martinis and double-Martinis, Kitchen wrote, but Craddock could be counted on for something out of the ordinary: "It has always been his idea to provide cocktails for, as he terms them, special occasions."

The occasion could be something grand, such as a coronation. And indeed, Craddock produced a pair of Coronation Cocktails--one with equal parts sherry and dry vermouth, together with dashes of maraschino liqueur and orange bitters; the other made with brandy and dashes of curaçao, peppermint liqueur and peach bitters. But he didn't need a big event to offer bespoke libations. "Just as couturiers match a woman's personality with a gown, Craddock supplies the cocktail to match your mood."

The bartender looked at Kitchen and sizing him up as a refugee from dry America presented him with a Prohibition Cocktail--gin and Lillet with dashes of orange juice and apricot brandy. Kitchen approved, and as he savored his drink he asked what the most popular cocktail had been that year at the bar. The Leap Year, Craddock responded, which he had invented months earlier for a Feb. 29 fête. The drink "was responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail of recent times."

Made of gin, sweet vermouth, Grand Marnier and a dash of fresh lemon juice, the Leap Year is a subtle and perfectly balanced cocktail, one that I've added to my list of personal favorites.

2 oz gin
½ oz sweet vermouth
½ oz Grand Marnier
1 dash fresh lemon juice
Shake with ice and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass. A twist of lemon peel on top.

It's a shame that it never really caught on in a big way (though as late as the 1960s, Schrafft's in New York was still serving the drink). But if the Leap Year cocktail is to see a revival, now's the time. And though it risks turning the delightfully occasional into the merely quotidian, I have to say that I like this drink enough that I'm not about to wait four years before I have another.

It's not just for Leap Year anymore.