The Boulevardier was created in 1927 by Harry McElhone for Erskine Gwynne at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris.

Boulevardier is the American cousin of the Negroni, using American whiskey and named for an American in Paris.

That American was Erskine Gwynne, a wealthy young journalist who came to Paris from New York to launch a literary magazine for posh men called The Boulevardier realized from 1927 to 1932

However, another very similar version was created years before – a rye whiskey version called Old Pal, named after William “Sparrow” Robertson, a sports editor of The New York Herald in Paris.