Tuxedo (IBA)

Tuxedo (IBA) Origin

The drink was not created at the Tuxedo Club as is often suspected as this did not open until 1886. The Tuxedo Club being a private member-owned country club near the village of Tuxedo Park, Orange County, New York State, USA.

While the club can't claim to have created this cocktail, it is credited with being the birthplace of the tuxedo jacket - well at least where its American name originated.

The origins of the gentleman's black tie dinner dress dates from 1860, when Henry Poole & Co. of London's Savile Row made a short smoking jacket for the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) as an informal alternative to white tie dress, then the standard formal wear.

In the spring of 1886, the Prince invited James Potter, a rich New Yorker to Sandringham. When Potter sought the Prince's advice on dinner dress, he sent Potter to his tailor's, Henry Poole. Back in New York Potter wore his newly acquired dinner suit at the Tuxedo Park Club which had recently opened. Other members of the club copied him and so the tailless dinner jacket acquired the club's name.