Here’s a question we’ve long pondered, and we are not alone: Why is it called the Legend of Zelda instead of the Legend of Link? After all, who does all the work? Who fights evil and traverses dungeons? Who takes on any job, none being too large or too small? Forsooth, it’s Link! Shouldn’t he have top billing?
Nonetheless, we concede that Zelda, being the reincarnation of the revered Goddess Hylia, is indeed legendary. Carrying on in the goddess’s tradition, Princess Zelda is generally doing something on behalf of the kingdom. (We joke a lot in this blog about her napping habits, but in truth it’s always some sort of magical slumber rooted in self-sacrifice.) And we readily acknowledge that if the game had instead been called the Legend of Link – well, that sounds like something to do with fabled breakfast sausages or perhaps connecting bank accounts for speedy payment. (As it happens, the latter is not entirely far-fetched; reportedly Shigeru Miyamoto, a Zelda producer, named our hero Link because he “connects people.”)
So we are okay with the title being the Legend of Zelda. Link’s a quiet sort, after all, not given to self-aggrandizement, unlike some. (Demelza would like to point out that it’s Itzal always making a fuss about who does all the work. Clearly the issue should be who makes all the sacrifices. Like late-night scrounging for insects or monster parts and cooking hearty durians.) (Itzal would like to point out who does all the work.)
But that brings us to a follow-up question: Why is Princess Zelda named Zelda? That is an easier answer. The aforementioned Miyamoto named our leading lady after Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald.[1]
And that got us to thinking further – clearly we have plenty of time for mulling, since we are STILL WAITING, Nintendo, for the sequel to Breath of the Wild, or even any mention of a release date of same, or SOMETHING – ahem, thinking further, we wondered what might have been Zelda Fitzgerald’s favorite cocktail.
Yes, of course, with us it all comes back to cocktails.
There are a couple of options here. One such possibility has already made an appearance on Zelda for Elders: the White Lady, featured in a photo at the top of this very page. The White Lady is attributed originally to Harry McElhone, who created a drink with lemon, triple sec, and crème de menthe while working at London’s Ciro Club. Reportedly, he eventually swapped out the crème de menthe for gin, a decision we wholeheartedly applaud.
Later, another Harry, this one Harry Craddock, included a White Lady cocktail in the Savoy Cocktail Book – with dry gin, Cointreau, and lemon, no crème de menthe at all, thank you very much – and allegedly he named it after Zelda Fitzgerald because of her platinum blonde hair. Not knowing Harry Craddock, nor Zelda Fitzgerald, nor really anyone born earlier than the last 100 years[2], we can only surmise this either to be the truth or, well, legend. The Legend of Zelda Fitzgerald and her cocktail, if you will.
The second possibility for a cocktail associated with Zelda Fitzgerald is the Gin Rickey. This drink was allegedly – when you’re dealing with legends, there’s a lot of allegedly called for – the favorite libation of F. Scott Fitzgerald, if not also of Mrs. F. Indeed, the drink makes an appearance in the pages of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. (The Gin Rickey has not yet appeared on Zelda for Elders, soon to be a literary phenomenon of cultural consequence similar to that of Gatsby.)
Now the origins of the drink itself? That, according to liquor.com, Wikipedia, and the Internet at large, requires no allegedly whatsoever: It is named after Colonel Joe Rickey, a Washington D.C. lobbyist in the 1880s. (We didn’t know him, either.)
In the Savoy Cocktail Book, Mr. Craddock notes that most Rickeys call for a lump of ice, the juice of a half lime or a quarter lemon, and a glass of “any spirit or liqueur fancied,” to which is added carbonated water. The original Rickey called for bourbon. We do not. Indeed, we Zelders fancy a number of spirits and liqueurs, it must be admitted, but the Rickey with respect to the Fitzgeralds was surely a gin concoction. And, in honor of Colonel Joe, we would make it with lime juice, the citrus he used in the drink, rather than lemon.
Accordingly, the White Lady and the Gin Rickey are our top two choices for a Legend of Zelda cocktail named after or fancied by the Princess who was in turn named after Mrs. Fitzgerald.
Since we’ve previously enjoyed a White Lady on these pages, today we bob our flapper hats to Zelda Fitzgerald, our game heroine’s namesake, as we down a Gin Rickey in her honor. (Itzal notes for the record he is not dressed as a flapper for the writing of this blog. Also, he hates jazz.)
[1] Our source regarding both the meaning of Link’s name and how Zelda got hers is shown in the photo above: The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, Dark Horse Comics, First English Edition, 2013, page 2. And for our younger readers, F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his works about the Jazz Age and, umm, drinking during the Jazz Age. We don’t have a source for the latter explanation, however, being so old we have forgotten when and where we might have learned it.
[2] Which is not an admission that we are 100 years old, merely that we knew some people born a century ago.