The Tippling Point | Remembering Joe Gilmore, the legendary bartender who created the Berkeley Stinger, and the MoonWalk cocktail for Neil Armstrong

The Savoy Court in Strand, London. Joe Gilmore was head bartender at The Savoy Hotel, where he served Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin, among other celebrities. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0)

Joe Gilmore didn't smoke the famous cigar Winston Churchill gave him but kept it as a treasure, displaying the gift proudly to his friends, until it eventually turned to "sawdust".

Gilmore's clientele wasn't limited to an occasional prime minister waltzing into a bar where he worked, but it also included Hollywood stars, famous artists, and writers who visited London in the middle of the last century.

So who was Joe Gilmore?

Gilmore was one of a family of 10 who started out for London from Belfast, Ireland. He was only 16. His family owned a tobacco shop back at home where he could have settled down, but his ambition took him on the road to the distant city in England. As a young boy, he did odd jobs packing rolls of wallpaper at a factory and washing dishes in restaurants, before he paid heed to his calling, and got himself trained as a barman at London's La Coquille and The Olde Bell at Hurley.

Serendipity had it that one day he met a stylish couple - millionaire steel baron Kenneth Davies and his lady friend, the famous aviator Amy Johnston - at his bar. The visitors had a thing or two to teach the young trainee barman. Gilmore thus picked the rudiments of making a Dry Martini.

Soon, he joined The Savoy, the most popular American bar in London, already made legendary by the presence of world-famous barman Harry Craddock (the compiler of the mixologist's bible - The Savoy Cocktail Book). The Savoy was also the exclusive meeting place for the classy and the affluent.

Under the tutorship of Craddock, Gilmore learned the tricks and trades of the job.

The night Gilmore invented his first cocktail was a momentous one in history (World War II was going on). By then he was transferred to another bar - the Perroquet in the old Berkeley Hotel. Gilmore recalled later in an interview that it was the night Cafe de Paris was bombed; 84 people were killed. Customers came in that afternoon all shocked and shivering. Joe, they called out, give us something with a sting in it.

Joe had whipped up a cocktail for his clients - the Berkeley stinger.

Places like Savoy and Berkeley Hotel had offered solace for city dwellers ever since England came under heavy attack.

In 1945, Gilmore returned to his home-turf and in a decade became its head barman. It was The Savoy, and the new appointment was featured in almost all newspapers across the country.

The stellar career of Joe Gilmore began.

With his charming smile and wisdom on what would strike with what in mixology, Joe Gilmore built a huge number of clients, even celebrities, all lining up for his attention.

Charlie Chaplin would occasionally drop in, leaving his wife at the door (back then, women were not allowed in bars), for a quick Martini or two from the hands of the head bartender. Churchill had his own entrance at The Savoy; he came in with his own bottle of Black and White whiskey which he handed over to Gilmore, reminding him that it was just for himself. When Gilmore whipped up a new cocktail in his honour, Churchill was so pleased that he gave his favourite bartender one of his famous cigars.

Gilmore knew what would please whom.

John Crawford, George Bernard Shaw (though he never drank alcohol), Ernest Hemingway, (Stan) Laurel and (Oliver) Hardy, Charles de Gaulle, Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Olivier, all savoured the drinks Gilmore made with his unchanging smile. Occasionally, Princess Margaret took Joe to Mustique to serve for her renowned parties on the Caribbean islands.

You know what Neil Armstrong drank after he came back from the mission where he made that first giant step for mankind?

The MoonWalk cocktail Joe Gilmore made at The Savoy. For many days, Gilmore had been repeatedly watching the moonwalk on his television. Now he desperately wanted something to commemorate the occasion. The cocktail was a mix of grapefruit juice, Grand Marnier, Champagne and rose water. The Savoy sent it off in a flask to the place where Neil Armstrong and his teammates were resting after their quarantine.

In a letter, the great astronaut thanked the bar saying it was the first drink after the event.

Gilmore's friends attest that he always knew what his customers wanted. And being close to the celebrities, he also knew the importance of discreteness. Tightlipped about the things he overheard and the ones that had been confided to him by his star celebrities, he was proud to take them all down to his grave in 2015.