One For My Baby

by Tom Smith

It's more than several years since I had the notion to unite two abiding passions (Frank Sinatra and fancy drinks) in a single book. A Sinatra Cocktail companion - as natural a combination as the Wham Bam Tang of Gin and Vermouth. Why had nobody done this before? Elvis has a cookbook - The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley by David Adler - but Frank, he should surely have a drinks companion. Tell me I'm wrong.

Research - look up drink/drunk/alcohol in the index of any/all biographies, browse websites for anecdotes, myths, legends, tall stories and facts. He had a lifelong involvement with booze and collecting examples was not difficult.

Cocktails - Jack Daniel's was his drink of choice but he was known to partake of other spirits (he liked ice cold, strong Vodka, Martinis, Tequila, he often felt he owed his life to a Bloody Mary or a Ramos Gin Fizz). I already owned a number of cocktail books, but also chased down online more classic recipes and found one or two original 50's paperbacks with details of drinks he was known to have and taken and enjoyed.

Behind all of this is a point. As well as the recipes, the Drunk Stories, accounts of some of his favourite Joints, his Drinking Buddies and the drinking rituals he followed or inspired there was The Saloon Singer. This was Sinatra's own description.