Stinger
A legendary boxing match inspires a legendary drink
By Arthur L. Shash
NEW YORK • 1885 — It was only 2:30 in the afternoon when Lilly Striker watched from behind the bar as Sandy Hale walked briskly through the doors of the Surf Avenue Saloon. The former heavyweight bare-knuckle champion, and the most famous person Lilly had ever seen up close, raced right past the bar and straight into the men’s room. When he emerged, he took a seat opposite Lilly on a stool. He looked terrible: sallow, red-eyed, jittery.
“Ale,” he said, meekly.
“Looks like you could use something stronger,” Lilly said.
“I agree,” Hale said. “But for now, ale.”
Stinger
2 ½ ounces cognac
½ ounce white crème de menthe
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a mint leaf
Every newspaperman in New York had been in the neighborhood that day. They’d come to the Coney Island Athletic Club, across the street from the tavern, for a lunchtime press event with Hale and Vern Rupple, the 6’8” monster who’d held the heavyweight title for three years.
Rupple had knocked out Hale to earn the title in 1882, and he’d mowed down 18 challengers since. A total of 68 teeth knocked out, 14 broken ribs, eight caved ear drums, six busted jaws, five failed kidneys, and two ruptured spleens. He put six men in the hospital with head wounds. One never came out.
Over the last year, the pool of challengers dried up. Promoters were getting desperate and hungry. The newspapers said Hale accepted $3,000 to get back in the ring with Rupple.
Lilly had always been able to get her customers to relax, and usually that came from listening. But first, you had to get them to talk. “You don’t look good, Mr. Hale,” she said, after the ale failed to calm him. “How can I help?”
“I’m scared,” Hale said. “When we stood up to face each other for the cameras out there, I soiled my trunks a little.” He looked to Lilly like he might cry. “That’s why I had to run into the men’s room. I don’t want my eardrum caved in.”
“Well, you took the money, Mr. Hale,” Lilly said. “So you must have a plan, right?”
“Yes!” Hale said, finally brightening. “I want to move to Florida and open up a spearfishing business.”
“I meant a plan to fight Vern Rupple,” Lilly said.
“I do, but I’m not sure it’ll work,” Hale replied. “I haven’t fought anyone in three years. I like ice cream. I don’t really remember how to tie my shoes. All I can think about is spearfishing.”
“I’m not sure that qualifies as a boxing strategy, Mr. Hale,” Lilly said.
“No, but what I think I’m going to do is brine my face, which will toughen up the skin for when he hits me. And then I got this idea from watching bees in my backyard: I’m going to run all around him, so he kind of swats at me, trying to get me away.”
“OK.”
“Yep, and then I’ll go to one end of the ring and turn around, bend over, and back my rear end up into his body really fast. Then I’ll reach behind both of us to the back of his legs and start pinching his skin really hard. It’s a new move – no one else is doing it right now. I call it the Stinger.”
“I think that’s going to work, Mr. Hale!” Lilly said. “Let’s make a cocktail to toast your new move. What’s your favorite spirit when you’re feeling like a champ?”
“It’s a Stinger,” Hale said. “Because bees.”
“Yes, I got that part, Mr. Hale. What’s your favorite flavor.”
“Cognac,” Hale said.
“Ah, mighty fancy,” Lilly said. “Let’s add something to it that will knock ‘em out.” She looked at her assembled bottles, then reached for the crème de menthe. “This oughta do it.” She poured two cocktails and slid one of them Hale’s way. “Here’s your Stinger, Mr. Hale. I believe you’re going to get your title back with that move. Bottoms up.”
Two weeks later, back at the Coney Island Athletic Club, 14,000 fans watched curiously as Hale, his face the texture of burnt goose skin, quickly, awkwardly backed his posterior into a confused Vern Rupple 20 seconds into the fight. Rupple launched a haymaker with his left hand that sent Hale into the crowd, and then into the surgery wing of Bushwick Hospital where doctors performed the first full rectal replacement in U.S. history.
Editor’s Note: Fact-based cocktail historians claim the Stinger was created, if not named, in 1890 at Hotel Bartholdi in New York. It is said that James B. Regan of the Hotel Knickerbocker in New York gave the drink its name in 1913.
Sources
Lilly Striker (as told to Ellen Vront), “I Was a Pugilist’s Barkeep,” Monthly Tavern Review (July 1886): 89-91
Calvin P. Wroppter, By Jingo Did He Get Pummeled!: The Legendary Beating of Sandy Hale (New York: Milky Calves Press, 1912)
Robin F. Blakey and Potter McNevin, “Crystallization of C-Reactive Protein Following Replacement of Entire Rectal System,” Annals of Extreme Proctology Quarterly 25 (Spring, 1887), 115-295
Contributors Notes:
Arthur L. Shash grew up in Bear, Delaware, and received a degree in herpetology from Goldey-Beacom College in Wilmington. Poems from his collection, “Viper Fangs, Ya’ll,” are due to appear in the spring 2028 issue of Casual Pants Quarterly. He is at work on a biography of the late-nineteenth-century deaf German salamander specialist Willy Wolterstorff, whose editorship of Blätter saw that publication’s readership soar among amphibian hobbyists in the years preceding World War I. French & Bloan will publish “Willy’s Lil’ ‘Manders” next spring.
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