Bar Hemingway
Keeping up with the Soods.
End of August , the summer breeze feels warm against the Zegna suit at the end of a long day. After a busy day, concluding a closely fought deal, and wandering through an exhibition of Monet’s waterlillies, our favourite banker-about-town, P Sood, walks out of the Le Meurice Hotel and walks towards the water. Briefly pausing to assist a few Japanese tourists, with yet another photograph at the Tuilleries, he rests against the embankment, watching the laser light show at the Tour d’ Eiffel, and waits for his companion to join him. He remembers the last time he stood there, in the chilly January air and sighed his soul across chilly skies to one who waited on the other side of that dark night. Mellow and reflective...what the hell, he could do with a well-deserved nightcap tonight.
Whatever the mood, whatever the season, the place to go for a civilized nightcap in Paris is the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Carlton. They walk through a long corridor, flanked on one side with floor to ceiling drapes concealing nooks full of interesting possibilities, and there it is, tucked away in the recesses of the Ritz. The bar itself is small, enough space for maybe 20 people. Its wood paneling, leather sofas and Hemingway memorabilia and photographs encourage people to talk of life, and of love.
Originally opened in 1921 as the small salon in which ladies waited for their husbands who drank at the main bar, the bar’s regulars have included Marlene Deitrich, Frank Capa, Graham Greene, Ingrid Bergman, F Scott Fitzgerald, among others. The best known patron, of course, is Papa Hemingway who whiled away many hours plotting racing bets at this bar, reputedly downing 51 dry martinis on a particular occasion. Over the years this hotel witnessed many historical events – from Papa Hemingway’s “liberation” of the wine cellar along with the liberation Paris in 1944, to his swinging from one chandelier to another, to the birth of the orchid trick - when Fitzgerald ate one by one all the petals of a box of orchids until a lady he desired said yes. One of the many legends insists that the Bloody Mary was created by the legendry bartender Bertin in 1954 so that Hemmingway could have an odorless drink which his (fourth) wife Mary could not detect. The combination of tomato juice and vodka was such a success that the next day Hemmingway reported to Bertin, "Bravo ! Bloody Mary didn't smell a thing" Hemmingway’s own recipe for this famous mix reads … "Keep on stirring and taste it to see how it is doing. If you get it too powerful weaken with more tomato juice. If it lacks authority add more vodka
Cheerily agreeing to the very agreeable suggestion of ordering the house cocktail by an extremely agreeable hostess, P Sood sits back and lets the history seep into his tired bones, till his companion spots a framed Guinness Book of World Records citation in the far corner, next to a large framed swordfish. This bar is famous for serving the world’s most expensive cocktail. Panicked, P Sood wonders if he has indeed ordered two $500 cocktails? He finally summons enough courage to approach Colin Fields, the head bartender.
A moment here on Colin Fields – P Sood first heard about the Bar Hemingway when a famous business magazine listed Fields as the Best Bartender in the World. With just a hint of a laugh, Colin charmingly assures them that they had indeed not ordered the “Ritz Sidecar” a drink that was created by the bar to take the chill off for a regular customer who arrived by motorcycle with sidecar. It is half-lemon juice and Contreau, half Ritz Fine Champagne 1830 - 1865 pre-phylloxera Cognac, that was nearly seized from the hotel by the Nazis during the German occupation. Only a few bottles remain to date.
The original Article as it appeared in Business India
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