Ward Eight

Cocktail Story

London bartender Robert Vermeire credits the creation of the Ward Eight to Boston bartender Tom Huisson in his 1922 book, Cocktails - How to Mix Them. Huisson tended bar at the Locke-Ober, one of the oldest standing taverns in Boston and the epicenter of mob activity during the late 1800s. In the Ward Eight, Huisson incorporated two novel turn-of-the-century ingredients in the same cocktail. Fresh oranges were exotic and expensive, and therefore less plentiful, while grenadine, a syrup made from pomegranate seeds, quickly became a fashionable alternative in recipes that called for raspberry or strawberry syrups. The Ward Eight endures as a calling card to those in the know of Boston’s old cocktail culture and remains one of the city’s most symbolic classics, embodying the dichotomy of organized crime sharing the same roofs as local watering holes throughout the city’s history.