Arsenic and Old Lace

A gin-and-absinthe stirred cocktail with crème de violette and dry vermouth that is bold, herbal, and hauntingly floral.

Arsenic and Old Lace is a floral gin cocktail combining gin, dry vermouth, absinthe, and crème de violette — a lavender-blue preparation whose name and character share the dark, elegant quality of Joseph Kesselring's celebrated 1941 Broadway dark comedy of the same title. Kesselring's play, which had its premiere at the Fulton Theatre in New York on January 10, 1941, and ran for 1,444 performances — one of the longest-running Broadway plays of its era — tells the story of two elderly aunts who poison lonely old men with elderberry wine laced with arsenic. The cocktail's combination of absinthe — associated throughout its cultural history with danger, madness, and bohemian excess — with the delicate, sweet violet of crème de violette produces a drink whose contrasts mirror the play's combination of the murderous and the genteel. Absinthe was distilled in the Val-de-Travers region of Switzerland and in Pontarlier, France through the late 19th century, banned in France in 1915 and in the United States in 1912 due to erroneous beliefs about thujone's effects, and re-legalized in the United States in 2007. Crème de violette — a liqueur made from violet flowers, most commonly the Parma violet variety — was produced in France through the early 20th century, fell out of commercial availability for decades, and was revived in the United States by Rothman & Winter's reintroduction of their Austrian violet liqueur in 2007. The craft cocktail bar Maison Premiere in Brooklyn helped establish the Arsenic and Old Lace as a benchmark floral gin cocktail.