NewYorkFirst.com: Stork Club Champagne Coupe

"The New Yorkiest Spot in New York."

- Walter Winchell at the Stork Club

From the Roaring Twenties to the chaotic Sixties, Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club was New York's most enchanting nightclub. It was a glittering world where starlets stalked millionaires, where Jack wooed Jackie, and where Prince Rainer wooed Grace Kelly. It was where Hemingway knocked down the warden of Sing Sing and Walter Winchell snubbed the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Return to the glory days of New York long since gone. Toast champagne cocktails with Gene Tierney and Johnny Coy. Browse the club's legendary bartender's manual. Steal one of those ashtrays!

Retro Glasses.
Lucius Beebe wrote: "There is no food or time of the day and night when the service of Champagne is not both appropriate and agreeable." Champagne flowed freely at the Stork Club. Anybody who was anybody had bottle of the house Champagne sent to their table, immediately upon arrival -- compliments of Sherman Billingsley. And, to accompany the ice-cold bubbly, festive, 5 1/2-ounce, Champagne Coupes. When you hold them, you feel fabulous. These nearly-extinct glasses stand 4 1/2 inches tall. Refills, please!

The Book.
It's the cocktail book to end all cocktail books. The Stork Club Bar Book is a truly unique collection of bar recipes all bound together by a witty and engaging commentary by Lucius Beebe. The author originated the phrase "saloon society," and was first introduced to the Stork Club back in 1930, in the brave old 58th Street days. First re-printing since 1946.

The Ashtray.
Even movie stars stole them. Marlene Dietrich kept one on her dresser to hold her earrings. The signature Stork Club ashtrays disappeared -- five dozen or more a day -- into pockets and purses. Our ceramic reproduction of the '30 and '40s most sought-after souvenir is 5" in diameter, with the same glistening black finish and bold white lettering as the original. Pass the Chesterfields.

The Blessed Event Room.
Walter Winchell was arguably the most popular and most influential newsman in the world, the "king of media" who reigned from Table 50 at the Stork Club. The inventor of the modern gossip column, he intermingled wordplay, obscure facts, philosophical observations, and tidbits about business, finance and the underworld with his core material of intimate news about celebrities. His flair for inventing or popularizing catchy new words and phrases was one secret of his great reader appeal: married couples were "sealed," divorced couples were "Reno-vated" or "telling it to a judge," people in love were "cupiding" or "making whoopie," and the birth of a baby was a "blessed event." Inspired by Winchell, the Stork Club christened its private party space the "Blessed Event Room."