Eat, drink like a president at special Reliable Source dinner, Feb. 22

In celebration of Presidents' Day, the National Press Club will host a Presidential Dinner and Cocktails beginning at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22, in the Reliable Source.

Club members and guests are invited to sample drinks that were the favorites of past presidents. There also will be special food menu for this occasion. Dinner reservations are encouraged. Contact 202-662-7443 or [email protected].

Presidential Dinner menu

Appetizers - $10 each

John F. Kennedy Bay scallop chowder

Midnight Edam Cheese Spread

Cornmeal and crab fritters

Main Courses - $20 each

Theodore Roosevelt: chicken fried steak with sage gravy sauce

Thomas Jefferson: chicken fricassee

Bill Clinton: Suzanne Goin’s Grilled Pork Burger with Romesco Sauce

President Trump: Mother's meatloaf with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes

Dessert

Zachary Taylor: Puffy Pillow beignets $8

The Reliable Source Presidential Cocktail Menu

Democrats

Daiquiri (John F. Kennedy) $8

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 while he watched the returns and learned he’d become the 35th president. 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) $8

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 with a 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 p.m., then he would commence cocktail hour in the “Oval Study,” as it was then known. His wife Eleanor said, “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) $8

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 Roosevelt informed Truman that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died that morning in Warm Spring, Ga., and Truman was now to become the 33rd 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 Fashioneds in the evenings, with as little sugar as possible.

Republicans

Dewars on the Rocks (James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison) $8

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) $8

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 Summersby, 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) $8

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, N.W. (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.”

Diet Coke (Donald Trump )