#72 Franz-Arthur MacElhone - Harry's Bar Paris, History of Bloody Mary, Sidecar, French 75; Harry MacElhone, Being a Custodian

About this episode

Franz-Arthur MacElhone discusses the history and legacy of Harry's New York Bar and its iconic cocktails.

Franz-Arthur MacElhone is the fourth-generation custodian of Harry's New York Bar, the legendary Paris institution founded in 1911 when its original Manhattan fittings were shipped across the Atlantic. His great-grandfather Harry MacElhone — a young Scotsman who arrived in Paris via Ciro's in London — bought the bar in 1923, put his name above the door, and set about building one of the most consequential addresses in cocktail history. Franz now runs the bar day to day, oversees its social media, has opened a second Harry's Bar, and has recently revived the International Bar Flies — Harry's original membership society.In this episode, recorded inside the bar itself, we work through the cocktails that made Harry's a cornerstone of the canon: the Bloody Mary (anchored by a 1967 Newsweek interview as the key documentary evidence), the Sidecar, the White Lady in both its original and better-known gin form, and the French 75 — originally made with Calvados, named after a piece of WWI artillery, and still the bar's best-seller. We also dig into Harry MacElhone as a personality: a WWI Royal Flying Corps pilot, a gifted self-promoter who distributed crying towels and earplugs during the…

People in this episode

Host: Tristan Stephenson

Guest: Franz-Arthur MacElhone

Topics covered

• cocktail history
• Harry's Bar
• legacy
• mixology
• French cocktails
• bar culture

Keywords

• Harry's Bar
• Franz-Arthur MacElhone
• cocktails
• Bloody Mary
• Sidecar
• French 75
• mixology
• bar history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harry's New York Bar, International Bar Flies, Newsweek

Books & works: Bloody Mary, Sidecar, White Lady, French 75

Places: Paris, Ciro's

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