Ada Coleman

Ada Coleman (1875–1966) was head bartender at the Savoy Hotel in London for twenty-three years, one of only two women to have held that position. While working at the Savoy, she invented the cocktail, the “Hanky Panky.”

Coleman was born in 1875, the daughter of a steward at Rupert D'Oyly Carte's golf club. When she was twenty-four, her father died, and D'Oyly offered her a job at one of his hotels, first in the flower shop then in the bar at Claridge's hotel.

Around the time that Coleman began working as a bartender, according to a study published in 1905, slightly less than half the bartenders in London were women. “Barmaids”, as they were called, were usually the daughters of tradesmen or mechanics or, occasionally, young women from the "better-born" classes who had been "thrown upon their own resources" and needed an income. Though the hours were long, many women saw the job as less monotonous and potentially more lucrative than other professions that were available to them. However, campaigns were underway at that time to eliminate the barmaid as a profession for women, because of perceptions that the job was bad for them and for society, physically and morally.

Coleman, at twenty-four, was nearly at the age ceiling for entry level female bartenders, as many bars and pubs specified no one over 25 need apply. In an interview with the London Express, Coleman remembered that the first mixed drink she made was a Manhattan, and that she was coached by Fisher, the Claridge's wine butler on how to make it.

Coleman was promoted to head bartender of the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in 1903. Though Coleman is sometimes cited as the first and only female head bartender at the Savoy, there was already another woman tending bar, Ruth Burgess, known as "Miss B" or "Kitty", who started in 1902. Newspaper accounts say they were equally popular with customers, but it was Coleman who was interviewed when she retired and who later found her way into 20th and 21st century histories of cocktails and bartending. One account says the two woman worked separate shifts for twenty years without speaking to one another because Coleman had refused to give Burgess the recipes for her popular drinks.

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