The Last Word Recipe

You could call the Last Word the true zombie of the cocktail world. Unlike the Zombie—that venerable tiki concoction which was constantly altered over the years, but which never actually disappeared—the Last Word was created and was then promptly forgotten for decades, before being brought back to life (rising from the grave, as it were) —stronger and more powerful than ever.

The Last Word dates to Prohibition, as far as anyone can tell, and except for a brief mention in Bottoms Up!—a 1951 cocktail manual by Ted Saucier—the drink languished in obscurity until the early aughts, when Seattle bartender Murray Stenson dusted off the recipe and began serving the drink to customers at Zig Zag Café. Fast-forward to the present day, and the Last Word is a fully revived classic, gracing the bar menus in cities around the globe. More popular now than it ever was in its youth, the Last Word is a surprisingly tasty balance of four ingredients —gin, lemon, Maraschino, and green Chartreuse— working in perfect unison. Mix one up this weekend, and make up for lost time.