A Toast To My Mom: Whiskey Sour On The Rocks (Not Too Much Sugar)

I believe this is the earliest picture of me drinking with my mom.

My mom died on this day in 1997, so I thought I’d take a little walk down memory lane and tell you a little bit about her. I could write volumes, but this is a website devoted to the pleasures of drinking (in moderation, natch), so I’ll focus on one fairly narrow aspect of her life.

Mom was a copywriter, mostly advertising, during the late ‘50s and ‘60s, the heyday of the Mad Men era. She was… well, think a more bubbly and vivacious Peggy Olsen. To be in that business back then, you had to be able to hold your liquor, and from what I know, she was pretty good at it. She met my dad in 1964 at some kind of advertising convention luncheon, at which she was drinking a martini. As she told it, my dad took it away from her (!), explaining that she shouldn’t be boozing so hard at such an early hour. And she married him anyway! Spirit-forward cocktails at lunch were par for the course back then, and despite the fact that she was a slim 5’2”, he needn’t have worried about her, as he soon found out.

She once described a typical day at work to me: “You’d get to the office at 9, work through till lunch, then go out and get sloshed. You’d come back, maybe take a little nap at your desk, and not get anything done until about 4. Then you’d work until dinner, go out, and drink some more. And do it all again the next day.” It gives me a headache just thinking about it, and that’s without mentioning the nonstop cigarette smoking from morning until bedtime.

My mom quit the business for a few years to raise me, but she didn’t quit drinking or smoking, not even during her pregnancy — it wasn’t considered hazardous back then. Fortunately, she ditched the cigarettes when I was about 5, after I told her that when I grew up I wanted to smoke just like her. She didn’t quit drinking, but but when she started copywriting again, she freelanced from home, so lunchtime boozing was no longer a thing. The industry had changed, too. I remember her lamenting, “Advertising stopped being as fun in the ‘80s. Everyone stopped drinking and started doing cocaine.”

I don’t remember her ever mixing a cocktail at home, and she didn’t keep a whole lot of booze in the house, but as a kid I was fascinated with the liquor bottles we did have. What the heck is Dubonnet? Who is this Marie Brizard person? What does “Cutty Sark” mean? Of course, once I became a teenager I began to sample some of the contents, namely Jack Daniel’s, which didn’t make me gag when I swigged it straight from the bottle, and Sambuca Romana, which tasted like mouthwash. She knew — hey, she’d been a teenager herself — but I didn’t do it often or to excess, so she let it slide.

There are three drinks I associate with my mom. One was white wine, a glass of which she usually had after dinner while she read a book in her favorite chair in our living room. I never paid attention to which brand she drank, and honestly, I don’t know how much attention she paid, either. It was more an accompaniment to the book rather than the focal point.

The second is the Navy Grog, which she drank when we went to Trader Vic’s for dinner, back when it was in the basement of the Plaza Hotel. The only time I ever saw her drunk was one night after a Navy Grog or two. I wouldn’t have known except when we got up she said, with some astonishment, “Oooh, I’m drunk!” She always maintained decorum — I’d like to think I do the same, although I’m sure my friends can remind me of some notable exceptions.

Being underage at the time, I stuck to Trader Vic’s non-alcoholic fruit punches, which were delicious, but I looked forward to the day when I’d be able to enjoy a Navy Grog myself. Unfortunately, Trader Vic’s closed the year before I hit legal drinking age, thanks to the owner of the Plaza, who declared it “tacky.” A fellow by the name of Donald Trump, who’s not exactly known as a paragon of class himself. Thus began my distaste for the man, which endures to this day. (I’ve since had Navy Grogs at other Trader Vic’s outposts, and they are indeed delicious — and potent.)

But my mom’s signature cocktail, the one by which I remember her, was the whiskey sour on the rocks (not too much sugar). It was her default accompaniment to Chinese food, and since we went out for Chinese on a weekly basis at minimum, it’s the drink that springs to mind when I think of her. She’d always order hers with “not too much sugar” — she didn’t realize that the bartender was most likely using store-bought sour mix. It took me decades to realize it myself. But she always enjoyed them at our regular haunt (Shun Lee West, which still stands today), so maybe the act of making the request was enough.

The whiskey sour is an easy drink to make, and it really is delicious, with our without Chinese food. So if you want to lift a glass to my mom, or if you’re just in the mood for a refreshing cocktail, here’s the recipe:

WHISKEY SOUR ON THE ROCKS (NOT TOO MUCH SUGAR)

Ingredients:
2 oz. whiskey (usually bourbon, though any whiskey will be pretty tasty)
3/4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
3/4 oz. simple syrup (if you want it without too much sugar, dial it down to 1/2 oz. If the result is too tart, just add a little more.)
Egg white (optional; it makes for a frothier drink but I usually don’t bother)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients with plenty of ice in a shaker. Shake heartily — if you include the egg white, really shake the heck out of it for a few minutes to produce the desired foam. Strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. If you want to do it the way my mom drank them, strain into a small wine glass containing a few ice cubes. Garnish with an orange wheel and a maraschino cherry (optional). And don’t forget to toast my mom. She’d appreciate it, I think, and so would I.

The whiskey sour on the rocks (not too much sugar) as served at Shun Lee West.