(One of these and the honeymoon is over). Four bottles Scotch; four drops Seltzer water; six teaspoonfuls bicarbonate of soda; four old lemons. Shake the soda, Seltzer water, and lemons together. Then send the mixture away to be analyzed. While you’re waiting for the chemist’s report, drink the Scotch. By the time the report arrives, you won’t care anyway.
(Recipe from Cocktail Recipes Mixed by Famous People for a Famous Hotel, 1933)
Historical Perspective
The very first cocktail competition that was held directly after Prohibition had ended was The Great Celebrity Cocktail Contest, which took place in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on December 5, 1933. The Great Celebrity Contest was the brainchild of one John Callin, the town-mayor who, before Prohibition, had formed a group called the National Association for the Advancement of the Fine Art of drinking. Callin issued a call for original cocktail recipes to be mixed and tasted at the elegant Hotel del Monte, in Carmel. A substantial number of artists and writers complied with Callin's call and showed up with a series of signature cocktails that were mostly extravagant and self-absorbed. Contributors to this unique collection of cocktails include Ernest Hemingway, Sinclar Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Marx Brothers, Marlene Dietrich, Will Sparks, George M. Cohan, Ed Wynn, W.C. Fields, and Jo Mora. After the contest had finished a local printer published a booklet containing most of the featured recipes, titled Cocktail Recipes Mixed by famous People for a Famous Hotel. The booklet was distributed less than one week after the repeal of Prohibition.
Source
Contraband Cocktails, How America Drank When It Wasn’t Supposed To, Paul Dickson (2015)