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Alphonse and Gaston
Alphonse. Fill a liqueur glass half full of maraschino, and float whipped cream on the top. Decorate with a cherry. Gaston. Use creme de coco for basic principle, float whipped cream on top, capping with blanched almond.
A matched pair of pousse-café-style cordials, served together as a joke on the two bowing cartoon Frenchmen. Nothing is cooked; the whole thing rests on cream stiff enough to sit on top of the liqueur.
- Liqueur glassA period liqueur or cordial glass holds about 1 fl oz (30 ml), so "half full" is roughly a tablespoon of liqueur. A modern cordial glass or small sherry glass is the closest equivalent; anything larger throws the cream-to-liqueur ratio off.
- Maraschino means the liqueurMost likely the clear Dalmatian cherry-pit liqueur rather than the red syrup from a cherry jar, given that it fills half a glass. Use a genuine maraschino such as the Luxardo style; cherry syrup will read as flatly sweet under the cream.
- "Creme de coco"Either a coconut liqueur or a misspelling of crème de cacao. The original is genuinely ambiguous and the recipe gives no way to settle which was meant.
- "Basic principle"In context this appears to mean the base ingredient or foundation of the drink: the coco liqueur goes in first, in the same half-glass measure as the maraschino.
- Floating the creamThis is the hinge. Whip the cream to soft-to-medium peaks so it holds shape but is not grainy, then spoon it gently over the surface rather than pouring; poured cream sinks and muddies the layer. Unsweetened or barely sweetened is right, since both liqueurs are sugary.
- The garnishesA cherry on the Alphonse, a blanched almond on the Gaston. Blanching means dropping shelled sweet almonds into boiling water for a minute and slipping off the skins; use ordinary sweet almonds, not bitter.
- Yield and serviceEach line makes one glass. They are sipped, not stirred, so make them to order and serve immediately, before the cream slackens.
The name is borrowed from Alphonse and Gaston, Frederick Burr Opper's newspaper comic of the early 1900s, whose two absurdly polite Frenchmen were forever deferring to each other at doorways: "After you, my dear Alphonse." The phrase entered American slang for mutual, paralysing courtesy, and soda fountains of the period are often said to have lifted names from comics, songs and stage hits to sell a drink on novelty alone. Serving the pair together is the whole joke, since neither glass will go first.