Boulevardier

Erskine Gwynne, Paris, 1920s. Gwynne, an American socialite and publisher of the expatriate Paris magazine 'The Boulevardier,' asked Harry MacElhone at Harry's New York Bar to name a drink after his publication. MacElhone documented the recipe in 'Barflies and Cocktails' (1927). The drink faded with Gwynne's magazine and the end of the expatriate Paris era, surviving only in cocktail history books until the craft cocktail revival of the early 2000s.

The Boulevardier is the American answer to the Negroni — bourbon (or rye) whiskey in place of gin, with Campari and sweet vermouth creating a stirred cocktail of extraordinary depth and warming complexity. Created by Erskine Gwynne, an American socialite who published a Paris magazine called 'The Boulevardier' in the 1920s, and first documented in Harry MacElhone's 1927 'Barflies and Cocktails,' the drink was largely forgotten until the early 2000s cocktail renaissance restored it to prominence. It has since become one of the most ordered classic cocktails globally — a drink that appears simpler than a Negroni (whiskey instead of gin) but is in fact more complex, because bourbon and Campari require more precise ratio calibration than gin and Campari.

FOOD PAIRING: The Boulevardier's bourbon warmth and Campari bitterness pairs with rich meat, aged cheese, and bitter chocolate. Provenance 1000 pairings: duck confit (whiskey and duck fat is a classic pairing), aged Gruyère (the vermouth's dried fruit and the bourbon's vanilla complement the cheese's nuttiness), beef carpaccio (the bitters provide herbal contrast), chocolate cherry tart (the cherry-bourbon bridge is direct), and smoked charcuterie board.