Hong Kong’s best places for a taste of Hanky Panky
The drink, a take on the sweet martini, was created at the American Bar in the Savoy Hotel in London for theatre manager and actor Charles Hawtrey. We look at various versions available in the city
It would be easy to assume that the Hanky Panky, first mixed at the American Bar of the Savoy Hotel in London sometime between 1903 and 1923, was a forerunner of the modern trend towards giving cocktails risqué names.
However, the meaning of the phrase appears to have changed over time. In early 20th century England it seems to have signified something along the lines of “the real deal” or “the real McCoy”.
That, at any rate, was the sense in which the famous actor-manager Charles Hawtrey used it when complimenting Ada “Coley” Coleman – a bartender and eventually head bartender there – on a drink she had prepared specially for him.
Women bartenders in upmarket venues like the American Bar were a rarity in London at the time, and Coleman enjoyed some celebrity status. Some years later in a newspaper interview she recalled creating the Hanky Panky, and credited Hawtrey – who she said was “one of the best judges of cocktails that I knew” – with naming it.
“When he was overworking, he used to come into the bar and say, ‘Coley, I am tired. Give me something with a bit of punch in it’. It was for him that I spent hours experimenting until I had invented a new cocktail. The next time he came in, I told him I had a new drink for him. He sipped it, and, draining the glass, he said, ‘By Jove! That is the real hanky panky!’ And Hanky Panky it has been called ever since.”
