Mary Pickford

60ml white rum (Havana Club 3 Year)



5ml maraschino liqueur (Luxardo)

60ml pineapple juice

5ml grenadine (Fruiss)

Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a maraschino cherry.

The Mary Pickford is a Prohibition-era cocktail created in Cuba (though by whom is debated) and named after a silent movie star I’d never heard of. It it one of a few older cocktails which can easily pass for modern creations, this in particular demonstrating almost all the characteristics of a tiki drink: rum, pineapple and maraschino. In contrast with perhaps the typical tiki cocktail however, the Mary Pickford is fairly simple; with a limited ingredient list which would be hard to ruin. The woody flavour of the maraschino mixing with the acid pineapple made me a big fan of the liqueur, and the grenadine lends the drink a tropical pink hue.

I would recommend making this for anyone with limited experience of cocktails, or to introduce maraschino liqueur to someone who’d never had it, as I haven’t yet found anyone who disagreed with it. I think this recipe may also prove to be fun to play with as well, and wonder about an overproof-touched, broadened version perhaps by way of Wray & Nephew and Ancho Reyes. As I said, it would be hard to ruin this drink, but no harm in trying.

Recipe credit to either Eddie Woelke or Fred Kaufmann, Hotel Nacionale, Cuba, 1920s.