Boulevardier (cocktail)

Lore & Background

The Boulevardier first appeared in print in the Parisian cocktail book Barflies and Cocktails (1927), where it is ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called Boulevardier, which appeared from 1927 to 1932. The cocktail appears, not in the main list of recipes, but in the essay 'Cocktails About Town' by Arthur Moss, which describes cocktails by men-about-town. The boulevardier is described as an equal parts cocktail: 1/3 Campari, 1/3 Italian vermouth, 1/3 Bourbon whisky. The cocktail did not catch on: no references to it have been found in cocktail books between 1927 and 2007, and it is absent from major collections. The cocktail was rediscovered and popularized first by Ted Haigh, later by others, starting with an article in the 2007 March/April issue of Imbibe, writing as 'Dr. Cocktail'. The boulevardier was still rare in the early 2010s, but by the mid-2010s was popular.

Reader's Guide

The original 1927 recipe is equal parts (1:1:1), but Haigh's 2007 revival is 3:2:2, calling for 1½ parts rather than 1 part whiskey, and these are the proportions used in the IBA standard and many boulevardier recipes. Others are heavier still (2:1:1), and call for two parts bourbon to one part vermouth and one part Campari. The IBA standard recipe also specifies serving straight up (no ice, stemmed glass) and garnishing with an orange twist.

Did You Know?

• The very similar 'Old pal' cocktail appears in the same 1927 essay, differing only in using Canadian Club whisky rather than bourbon.
• The boulevardier became an IBA official cocktail in 2020, in the 'Unforgettables' section.

A Parisian Debut in 1927

The Boulevardier first entered the written record in 1927, tucked away in the Parisian cocktail volume Barflies and Cocktails. It was credited to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who had launched a monthly magazine in Paris under the same name, running from 1927 through 1932. The recipe did not sit among the book's main recipe listings; instead, it surfaced in an essay titled "Cocktails About Town" by Arthur Moss, a piece profiling drinks favored by men-about-town. Gwynne's creation was described as a straightforward equal-parts blend: one-third Campari, one-third Italian vermouth, and one-third bourbon whisky. In that same essay, a near-identical drink called the Old Pal appeared, swapping in Canadian Club whisky for the bourbon. The Boulevardier's placement in a casual essay rather than a formal recipe list may have foreshadowed its long absence from the cocktail canon.

Eight Decades of Silence

For roughly eighty years, the Boulevardier vanished from the cocktail world. Between its 1927 debut and 2007, no references to the drink surfaced in any cocktail book, and it was conspicuously absent from major collections. This silence stands in sharp contrast to its contemporary, the Old Pal, which made it into the main recipe lists of later editions of MacElhone, including the 1952 version, and earned a spot among the fifty cocktails on the inaugural 1961 IBA official list. The Negroni, though it did not appear in print until the late 1940s, climbed to popularity in the 1950s and also secured a place on that same 1961 IBA roster. The Boulevardier, by comparison, simply fell out of memory. No bartender's guide, no bar manual, no cocktail anthology carried its name through the mid-twentieth century or into the early twenty-first. It existed only as a footnote in a single Parisian volume, waiting for someone to rediscover it.

The Craft Cocktail Resurrection

The Boulevardier's second life began in 2007, when Ted Haigh, writing under the pen name "Dr. Cocktail," featured the drink in the March/April issue of Imbibe magazine. Haigh went on to publish a recipe in his 2009 book, followed by additional articles that kept the cocktail in the public eye. The revival was amplified by Paul Clarke, who learned about the drink from Haigh and then shared recipes on Serious Eats and in his own 2015 publication. Riding the wave of the broader craft cocktail movement that was reshaping bars in the late 2000s, the Boulevardier moved from obscurity to regular menu presence. While it was still a rarity in the early 2010s, by the mid-2010s it had become a recognizable offering in cocktail bars. Its rise was closely tied to its identity as a whiskey-based variant of the Negroni, a connection that made it an easy sell to patrons already familiar with that classic.

Defining the Boulevardier's Identity

The Boulevardier occupies a distinctive niche among stirred cocktails. It shares two of its three core ingredients with the Negroni—Campari and sweet vermouth—but replaces gin with bourbon or rye whiskey as its backbone. The IBA standard recipe, adopted in the 2020 "Unforgettables" list, calls for a 1½-to-1-to-1 ratio, giving the spirit a fuller voice than the equal-parts proportions of the original 1927 recipe. It is served straight up in a stemmed glass rather than over ice in a tumbler, and garnished with an orange twist instead of an orange slice. The Old Pal, its closest relative, distinguishes itself by using dry French vermouth and rye whiskey exclusively, with an equal-parts ratio. In practice, recipes vary widely: some stick to the original 1:1:1, others follow Haigh's 3:2:2 revival proportions, and still others push the spirit even heavier at 2:1:1. This flexibility in proportion and presentation is part of what keeps the Boulevardier feeling both classic and constantly evolving.