Like many prohibition-era cocktails, the Damn the Weather was conceived as a way to hide the scent and flavor of poor quality homemade spirits, in this case bathtub gin. The original recipe was included in Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book.
First appearance in The Savoy Cocktail Book published in 1930 by Harry Craddock
Death in the Afternoon, also called the Hemingway or the Hemingway Champagne, is a cocktail made up of absinthe and Champagne, invented by Ernest Hemingway. The cocktail shares a name with Hemingway's 1932 book Death in the Afternoon, and the recipe was published in So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a 1935 cocktail book with contributions from famous authors. Hemingway's original instructions were:
Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.
It is claimed that the cocktail was invented by Hemingway after he spent time in the Left Bank, Paris, and enjoyed the absinthe there. The original printed recipe for the drink claimed that it was invented "by the author and three officers of H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders’ fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale." Death in the Afternoon is known for both its decadence and its high strength.
There are a number of alternative ways to produce Death in the Afternoon. The absinthe can be added to the glass after the Champagne, as some brands of absinthe will float on the Champagne for a short time. Other alternatives have arisen because of the difficulty of acquiring absinthe; the absinthe can be replaced with Absente, an alternative to absinthe available where it is illegal, or a strong pastis, such as Pernod. Variants which use an alternative to absinthe are sometimes given a different name, but are also sometimes still referred to as Death in the Afternoon. Some recipes direct the person making the cocktail to use ingredients in addition to the Champagne and absinthe; Valerie Mellma recommends that a sugar cube and several dashes of bitters be added to the glass prior to the main ingredients.
The cocktail is milky in appearance on account of the spontaneous emulsification of the absinthe (or substitute), and bubbly, which it takes from the Champagne. After the first sip, however, it becomes significantly less bubbly. Harold McGee, dining and wine writer for The New York Times, said that it "seemed a waste of effervescence" (though substituting Pernod for the absinthe).
First appearance in So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon published in 1935 by Sterling North
The El Presidente earned its acclaim in Havana during the 1920s through the 1940s during the American Prohibition. It quickly became the preferred drink of the Cuban upper class.
There are two rival stories of who the cocktail is named after. One is Mario García Menocal, President from 1913-1921. The other is Gerardo Machado, who was a General and also President from 1925-1933.
There are also multiple claims as to the invention of the cocktail. One story is that it was American bartender Eddie Woelke, who named it after Gen. Menochal after moving to Havana. Another claim is that it was invented as early as 1915 in Cuba, 5 years before Woelke set foot on the Malecón in 1920. This premise if true is even further debated, as either being invented at the Vista Alegre (a Havana establishment frequented by Americans), or by Pres. Menocal himself.