Watch Sept. 29 presidential debate in Truman Lounge
The National Press Club will host a viewing party for the Presidential Debate on Tuesday, Sept. 29, starting at 8 p.m. in the Truman Lounge. Members and their guests are invited to watch this debate after dinner on the big screen in the Club Ballroom.
Special drinks and a la carte menu are expected to be available for this occasion.
During the second stage of reopening in the District of Columbia, the Club is open to members and their guests. Members should make a reservation before visiting the Club via our online reservation form and must follow our new health and safety procedures when visiting. You must wear a mask at all times except when eating and drinking.
The Reliable Source Presidential Cocktail Menu
Democrats
Daiquiri (John F. Kennedy) $10
1.5 ounces white rum
½ ounce fresh lime juice
½ oz simple syrup
Shake well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass or coupe (wider-styled Champagne glass)
President John F. Kennedy (1961-63) sipped Daiquiris on the evening of Election Day, 1960, watching the returns and coming to learn he’d become the 35th President of the United States. Also, according to the memoir of his former intern Mimi Alford, Kennedy’s staffer David Powers plied Alford with Daiquiris so Kennedy could more easily seduce her.
Dry Gin Martini (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) $10
2 oz London dry gin
1 oz dry vermouth
1 olive
1 tsp olive brine
Stir all ingredients in mixing glass with plenty of ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish olive
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45) loved a good dry Martini, as did his chief World War II ally, Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, when FDR served one to Russian dictator Josef Stalin at the Yalta Peace Conference, Stalin claimed it was “cold on the stomach.” FDR used to work until around 7:15, then would commence cocktail hour in the “Oval Study,” as it was then known. According to his wife Eleanor , “If truth be known, Franklin used to make the most terrible Martinis....However, people drank them with zest because he had made them.”
Old Fashioned (Harry Truman) $10
2 oz bourbon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Dash water
1-2 dashes Angostura bitters
Muddle sugar and bitters, add bourbon and ice, stir, serve. Garnish with orange peel and cherry.
On April 12, 1945, Harry Truman (1945-53) was the newly-installed Vice President. He was sipping bourbon in Sam Rayburn’s office when he was urgently summoned to the White House. First Lady Eleanor informed Truman that President Roosevelt had died that morning in Warm Spring, Georgia, and Truman was now to become the 33d President. Flustered, Truman asked her “is there anything I can do for you?” She replied, “Is there anything we can do for you, you're the one in trouble now.” At the White House, Harry and his wife Bess loved their Old Fashioned in the evenings, with as little sugar as possible.
Republicans
Dewar’s on the Rocks (James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison) $10
2-3 oz Dewar’s Whisky
Serve in a rocks glass with ice.
President James Garfield (1881) spent less than a year in office, but as an inauguration present, industrialist Andrew Carnegie sent a case of Dewar’s to the White House. Carnegie also sent the same present to Benjamin Harrison (1889-93), whose thank you note to Carnegie read: “It was nice of you to think of me as to needing a ‘brace’ this winter in dealing with congress.”
The Gin & Tonic (Dwight David Eisenhower) $10
2 oz London dry gin
4 oz tonic water
Serve on the rocks in a highball glass, garnish with a lime wedge.
In his role as SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force), leading the Allied armies in the June, 1944 invasion of France, Ike came to spend a lot of time with his staffer, Kay Summers by, which (according to her memoir) led to a wartime romance. One warm afternoon, she and Ike enjoyed G&Ts in an English pub. “It was a gin and tonic kind of day. As we set there and sipped our drinks, the late-spring afternoon slipped into evening. The nightingales were singing.”
Mai Tai (Richard Milhous Nixon) $10
2 ounce dark rum
1 oz light rum
1 oz fresh lime juice
½ oz orange curacao
¼ oz simple syrup
¼ oz orgeat syrup
This cocktail is shaken and served over crushed ice with a mint sprig as garnish, also a straw.
Richard Nixon (1969-74) loved Trader Vic’s, birthplace of the Mai Tai, and he would often sneak out of the White House to visit the Trader Vic’s at the corner of 16th and K Streets, NW (inside the Hilton Hotel). According to Wall Street Journal columnist Eric Felten, “the Mai Tai became something of the official drink of the Nixon presidency, much to the consternation of some.”