Last Word

The Last Word is a Prohibition-era cocktail that is made with an equal-parts mix of gin, Green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice. The combination boasts both sweet and sour notes, as well as a deeply complex herbaceous bitter flavor. 

The Last Word dates to around 1916, where it seemed to first appear on the cocktail list at the Detroit Athletic Club bar. As the U.S. bar industry rebounded from Prohibition in the 1930s, the cocktail was largely forgotten, beyond appearances in a few mid-century cocktail books like Ted Saucier’s Bottom’s Up, published in 1951.

The early 2000s saw a resurgence in pre-Prohibition cocktails and their often stronger, simpler builds. While most bartenders were still relearning classics like the Old Fashioned or Manhattan, a bartender named Murray Stenson, while working at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, unearthed Saucier’s Last Word recipe. The drink caught on, over 90 years after it was first served in Detroit, and soon became required knowledge for bartenders the world over.

Stenson, who died in 2023 after years of declining health, became inextricably associated with the Last Word, though he was always one to avoid placing himself in the spotlight, notably skipping his own Tales of the Cocktail ceremony in which he was named America’s best bartender in favor of working a shift. When asked by writer Casey Robinson in 2020 about his fame resulting from the Last Word, Stenson responded, “I got famous on someone else’s drink. That’s about it.” 

What makes the Last Word work

The Last Word gets its unmistakable hue from Green Chartreuse, an aromatic liqueur made from macerated herbs and plants. Historically, Chartreuse has been made by Carthusian monks at a monastery north of Grenoble, France, and the recipe, which originated in the early 1600s with King Henry IV of France, famously uses around 130 ingredients and remains a closely guarded secret. While there are a few types of Chartreuse that the Carthusian monks make, the Last Word calls for the green variety, which is perhaps the most common. Sweet and herbaceous, it comes in at around 110 proof or 55% ABV, making it a potent addition to cocktails. 

Though some modern bartenders may choose to tweak proportions, the Last Word is traditionally an equal parts cocktail. This makes it quite simple to mix correctly, and despite its complex flavor profile, the drink itself doesn’t require any special skill to pull off right. Chartreuse and maraschino liqueur provide the sweet elements, balanced by lime juice. Gin provides what would be considered the base liquor of this sour-profile drink, but since it’s used in equal amounts to the higher-proof Chartreuse and other ingredients, the gin itself is not meant to take center stage. Because of this, a gin with a more neutral profile, like a clean and crisp London Dry, is often the best option for a Last Word, to avoid any clashing flavors.

When mixed correctly what you get is a cocktail in which tartness and aromatics form the base, rather than any predominantly spirit-forward notes. The drink goes down easy — sometimes too easy, for how deceptively strong it is — but for a cocktail that comes together in under a minute with minimal measuring or fuss required, the Last Word is always the start of a good time.