Maggie Smith’s Influence Rippled to the Cocktail Hour

In 2011, a New York bartender paid tribute to the actor with a sly tweak to a pre-Prohibition cocktail.

The most intense pleasures of a Maggie Smith performance were seldom caused by loud histrionics. The moments that thrilled admirers of the British actor, who died on Friday at 89, were often the quieter ones — little asides murmured under her breath, telegraphed only by a sly smile or an expressively arched eyebrow.

Recipe: Maggie Smith

Joaquín Simó, a longtime Manhattan bartender, was watching the 1982 film adaptation of “Evil Under the Sun” during what he calls “an Agatha Christie wormhole” when one of those minor scenes caught his attention. Playing a hotelier on an Adriatic island, Ms. Smith makes a suggestion to Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot:

“Care for a cocktail, Monsieur Poirot? A White Lady, sidecar, Mainbrace or Between the Sheets?”

Poirot was not tempted by any of them, but Mr. Simó was, particularly by the Between the Sheets, a pre-Prohibition drink made with equal parts rum, brandy and Cointreau. “It was like, ‘Oh man, why don’t we ever make those?’” he said.

One reason may have been that the full brunt of all those spirits, cut only by a dash of lemon juice, is a little much for modern palates. So he turned the volume up on the citrus and down on the sweetness, fine-tuning until he had a Between the Sheets variation he liked. He got it onto the list at Death & Co, the East Village bar where he was working at the time. Called the Maggie Smith, it was served during the spring and summer of 2011 before being retired from the stage.

As far as Mr. Simó knows, Ms. Smith never learned about his tribute. Hearing of her death, he reflected on what he called the “fearlessness” that made her small scenes feel bigger.

“She was captivating,” Mr. Simó said. “Even in little throwaway lines, like offering a drink that was rebuffed.”

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