The original Alexander, equal parts gin, crème de cacao, and cream, is thought to have originated in the 20^th century, certainly before 1915, evidenced by an equal parts recipe appearing in Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 book Recipes for Mixed Drinks.

The Brandy Alexander originated shortly after at the Hotel Rector in New York City. During Prohibition, drinkers began swapping gin for other spirits, and cognac was the one that stuck.

On 21^st March 1929, New Yorker columnist Water Winchell links the origin of the Alexander cocktail to Troy Alexander, a bartender at a New York pre-prohibition restaurant called Rector and claims that Troy created and named for a dinner celebrating a successful advertising campaign.

The advertisement describes Phoebe Snow, a fictitious railway traveler, wearing a snow-white dress featured in an advertising campaign for Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad to promote the company’s use of clean-burning coal to fuel its locomotives.