2,5 cl Bourbon
2,5 cl Campari
2,5 cl Red Vermouth
Pour ingredients into a mixing glass, filled with cracked ice. Stir thoroughly, for about 15-20 seconds, till the mixture is well chilled, strain into a pre-chilled cocktail glass, garnish with cocktail cherry and serve
The Boulevardier first appeared in Harry McElhone’s 1927 bar guide Barflies and Cocktails, in which McElhone seems to defer to Gwynne as the actual inventor of the drink. The Boulevardier was the favorite signature drink of Erskine Gwynne, a famous American polo-player and a nephew of railroad tycoon Alfred Vanderbilt. Erskine Gwynne was the well-to-do publisher of The Boulevardier, a literary magazine that he published in Paris, from March 1927 until January 1932, under the editorship of Arthur Moss. The Boulevardier was an English-language magazine, very much patterned after The New Yorker. Upon launching the magazine, which was apparently both humorous and literary, Gwynne said it would be "fast but clean." The magazine published advertisements seeking subscribers in both Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails (1919, revised annually) and Barflies and Cocktails (1927), the memoir and recipe collections of Harry MacElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris. The Boulevardier, often referred to as the “Bourbon Negroni,” successfully marries three standard cocktail components, bourbon, Campari and red vermouth. Gwynne's original recipe called for three equal parts, making it lean on the Negroni-formula. Bourbon – rather than gin¬ – gives the cocktail a more stringent flavor profile. Gwynne was a welcome guest in the many cocktail bars of Paris he used to frequent. Soon after his entrance in the Parisian social scenery, he contributed his favorite cocktail after his magazine. Most likely Harry’s New York Bar was the birthplace of The Boulevardier, McElhone credited Gwynne, one of his regular customers, with inventing the drink.