Scoffin' the Law

I want to be a scofflaw
And with the scofflaws stand;
A brand upon my forehead
A handcuff on my hand.
I want to be a scofflaw,
For since I went to school,
I hate to mind an order,
I hate to keep a rule.

~ anonymous poet C.W.
in Franklin P. Adams’ column
New York World, Jan 16, 1924

Delcevare King was a staunch prohibitionist and big mahoff with the Anti-Saloon League during Prohibition. His story is old hat to linguists and cocktail mavens, but the rest of us could use an introduction for his contribution to the drinking arts. In October 1923, he wrote a letter to the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (he was class of 1895) protesting the Harvard Glee Club’s singing of Johnny Harvard, the “most drinking of drinking songs…that comes pretty near to scoffing at the prohibition law.”

Even prohibitionists sometimes can have a point. Given some of the song’s lyrics, a reasonable person might conclude that alcohol—illegal for beverage purposes at the time—might figure subtly into undergraduate life at the university:



Drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink,
drink.
Yes, drink.




King took umbrage and launched a national contest to come up with a new word describing those who flaunted their disregard of laws banning beverage alcohol. A $200 award was to be dispensed for the word “which best expresses the idea of lawless drinker, menace, scoffer, bad citizen, or whatnot, with the biting power of ‘scab’ or slacker.’”

There were something like 25,000 entries. Also-rans, according to the Boston Herald, include; vatt, still, scut, sluf, curd, canker, scrub, scuttier, dreg, drag, dipsic, boozlaac, alcolog, barnacle, slime-slopper, ell-shiner, still-whacker, sluch-licker, sink, smooth, lawless-ite, bottle-yegger, crimer, alcoloom, hooch-sniper, cellar-sifter, rum-rough, high-boozer, and law-loose-liquor-lover.

Whew. Lawless-ite ranks up there with deadites from the Evil Dead movies for words that hurt my ears, but I quite like bottle-yegger and even scuttier has a ring to it. Next time I'm giving someone the high hat, I might have to use that. I wonder—is there still a stash of submission letters somewhere? Some Boston-area archives?

Of the 25,000 entries, two contestants came up with the same term: scofflaw. The prize was split between Henry Irving Dale and Kate L. Butler. Within days, Harry’s Bar in Paris was offering a “Scoff-Law Cocktail.” The cocktail faded for a while, but the word stuck. A shame about the fading drink, though: it really does deserve a spot in your repertoire.


The Scofflaw Cocktail

1.5 oz rye
1 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz lemon juice (freshly squeezed, please)
3/4 oz grenadine*

Shake with ice in a shaker for a slow count to ten, then strain into a cocktail glass and, if you like, add a lemon twist.

Yes, drink.

* Lagniappe: Make Your Own Grenadine

The cocktail crowd over at eGullet has an ongoing discussion of how best to make one's own grenadine from fresh pomegranate juice rather than relying on the scarlet corn syrup we knew growing up. If you want that bright Shirley-Temple-Cocktail red, then a brand such as Rose's would turn the trick. But it's worth experimenting with sugar and pomegranate juice to come up with your own house version. Here's what I do:

1 cup POM pomegranate juice
1 cup white table sugar
3-4 dashes of orange flower water

Put all the juice and sugar into the container in which you will store it—a plastic squeeze jar, a repurposed vermouth bottle, or even the POM bottle itself after using half the contents—and shake the hell out of it. Once the sugar goes into solution, add the orange flower water, give it a few swirls, and store in the refrigerator.

Note that this version, while red(ish), is much more dark and even slightly muddy-looking. The taste it great, but it's emphatically not the stuff of Kiddie Cocktails.


Goes well with

• The Harvard Song Book
  
• Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success by Allan Metcalf
• Metcalf has been the long-standing executive secretary of the American Dialect Society
• David Wondrich's Imbibe!, a modern classic in mixology and the stratigraphy of cocktails
• Miller's Crossing, a script by Joel and Ethan Coen
  

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