The Alamagoozlum cocktail is a drink published in Charles H. Baker Jr. 1946 Around the World With Jigger Breaker.  Charles H. Baker, Jr. was also an editor for Town & Country and wrote for Gourmet, Esquire, and other magazines.

In his book Around the World With Jigger Breaker he titled the cocktail as “J. Pierpont Morgan’s Alamagoozlum, the Personal Mix Credited to that Financier, Philanthropist, & Banker of a Bygone Era.” and describes it, “To tell the truth this is no exotic from a far land but is such a tasteful and sound cocktail that we append it here, standing on its own legs and its own merit”.

The Alamagoozlum cocktail also appears in David A. Embury’s 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks where also credits the creation to John Pierpont Morgan.

If you wonder about the name, the original Alamagoozlum was maple syrup. However, the word can be derived from the old days or different meanings in slang, when it was used as a fanciful nonsense term. As a matter of fact, the recipe doesn’t call for maple syrup anytime.

Another story tells during Prohibition in the US, tourists and American ex-pats added soda water to the mix and became known as the Americano.