2 ounces rye whiskey
1/2 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 ounce orange juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 ounce (real) grenadine *see note
Garnish: maraschino cherries and an orange slice
Add the rye whiskey, lemon and orange juices and grenadine to a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled. Strain into a tall glass with ice and garnish with cherries and an orange slice
*note: Real pomegranate-based grenadine has a much nicer flavor than the bright red sugar syrup from the supermarket.
The origin stories for many historic cocktails can be sometimes be difficult to trace or confirm, but the Ward Eight isn’t one of those cocktails.
The Ward Eight is one of, if not the, most popular cocktail ever created in Boston, Massachusetts. It was conceived in 1898 at the Locke-Ober Café to celebrate the election of Martin M. Lomasney to the state legislature. Lomasney was a politician who wielded considerable power in Boston for 40 years, serving as a state senator and representative, as well as a political “boss” in the city’s eighth ward (hence the name). Some stories point out that it’s odd that Lomasney was so sure of he’d win before election day that he had the bar create a new cocktail just for his victory party. Rumor has it he had fixed the election.
We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that the Ward Eight is essentially just a riff on a rye Whiskey Sour sans egg white. You substitute some of the lemon juice for orange juice and swap out the simple syrup for grenadine.
While we do know when and where this cocktail was invented, the recipe itself wasn’t actually written down at the time, so the exact recipe is disputed and there are some variations on it. The most popular recipe is a mix of rye whiskey, lemon and orange juices, and grenadine. Most recipes out there seem to be very similar but some omit the orange juice.
Many modern bartenders today will serve this straight up in a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, but when it was first invented it would have been served over ice in a tall Collins glass.
