Mary Pickford

This modern adaptation of the old recipe is meant to be rum-forward. While most recipes call for white rum, consider making it with other types to create a more flavorful drink.

This cocktail hinges on the use of fresh pineapple juice - the canned version simply won’t do.

If you want to experiment on this recipe, consider adding a small amount of acidity through the use of lime juice. If coupled with an egg white, it would bring this cocktail into Sour territory.

Watch the linked video for an exploration of the Mary Pickford by bartender Anders Erickson, we’ve also included his alternate version below (See Related Recipes).

Named after Gladys Marie Smith (1892-1979), better known as Mary Pickford, a prominent Canadian actress, who later became a producer and is considered a pioneer in the US film industry.

The recipe was created in Cuba in the 1920’s by either Eddie Woelke or Fred Kaufman, famous bartenders of the time who gathered daily at the rooftop bar in the Sevilla-Biltmore Hotel in Havana.

It was long thought that the cocktail was created for a trip in which Pickford, her husband and their best friend, Charlie Chaplin, were filming a movie in Cuba. However, this Vanity Fair article debunks that story, noting that “a thorough review of Mary and Doug’s schedule reveals no trips to Cuba—and they never made a film there during their marriage”.

It appears that the story stems from one of the oldest publications of this recipe, in Basil Woon’s When it’s Cocktail Time in Cuba (1928). Turns out that Woon had been hired to promote tourism in Cuba at a time when the US was in the midst of Prohibition.

The Mary Pickford also appears in another book published the same year: Cocktails by Spanish bartender Pedro “Perico” Chicote. Curiously, this version does not contain pineapple juice, and calls for the use of an egg white.