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documentary evidence), the Sidecar, the White Lady in both its original and better-known gin form, and the French 75 — originally made with Calvados, named after a piece of WWI artillery, and still the bar’s best-seller.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 1929 financial crash, and — as Franz argues — someone who invented marketing before marketing was even really a word. Franz reflects on what it means to be born into that legacy: the daily responsibility of keeping 115-year-old American mahogany in good repair, serving 600 cocktails a day, and running through thousands of bottles of Cognac a year, while living by the philosophy he has coined to capture the whole thing: traditionally inventive.
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00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:08 The origins of Harry’s New York Bar, Paris
00:04:14 Harry MacElhone: from Scotland to the soul of Paris
00:07:43 Harry’s ABC of Mixing Drinks and the Prohibition-era cocktail books
00:13:38 The Bloody Mary: history, evidence, and the first vodka cocktail
00:21:36 The Sidecar: creation story and specs
00:25:50 The White Lady: two drinks, one name
00:29:38 The French 75: from artillery to champagne glass
00:34:51 The Monkey Gland: the cocktail, the surgeon, and the story
00:37:36 Harry MacElhone: marketing genius and the International Bar Flies
00:44:51 Running Harry’s Bar: family stewardship and legacy
00:50:39 Growing up MacElhone: recognising something special
00:53:25 The Paris cocktail scene today
00:54:40 “Traditionally Inventive”: Harry’s Bar today and tomorrow
00:59:52 What Franz drinks
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