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History Of The Scoff-Law
The earliest recipe for the Scoff-Law (or just Scofflaw) I can find comes from the 1927 book “Barflies and Cocktails” by Harry McElhone. McElhone credits a bartender named Jock at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris for inventing the drink. The cocktail was named after the prohibition term “Scoff-Law,” which at the time meant anyone who illegally drank—ignoring the laws against alcohol consumption. The term is still used today to indicate someone who scoffs at the laws and intentionally breaks them. The book Barflies and Cocktails cited an article from the Chicago Tribune on January 27, 1924.
“Hardly has Boston added to the Gaiety of Nations by adding to Webster’s Dictionary the opprobrious term of “scoff-law” to indicate the chap who indicts the bootlegger, when Paris comes back with a “wet answer” — Jock, the genial bartender of Harry’s New York Bar, yesterday invented the Scoff-law Cocktail, and it has already become exceedingly popular among American prohibition dodgers.”
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