The Large Amount Of Booze Frank Sinatra Often Requested For His Dressing Room

Frank Sinatra was unarguably the reigning king — or chairman, as he'd probably prefer to be known — of 20th-century entertainment. Elvis and the Beatles might have burned brighter for a brief period, but Sinatra's stardom lasted from the 1930s until he faced his final curtain in the late '90s. Even today, nearly three decades after his death, we're still intrigued by the little things that proved he was actually human, not a singing deity descended from some musical Mt. Olympus. These include his fondness for Entenmann's coffee cake, as well as the 24 rolls of Life Savers he had to have in his dressing room. Another item his dressing room wasn't short on, besides candy, was booze — approximately seven bottles of the stuff.

Wait, how much was Ol' Blue Eyes drinking? He was said to have knocked back a fifth of bourbon on a near-daily basis, but he was no Andre the Giant guzzling 100 beers in a night. Not just the number, but the variety of bottles he requested indicated that many of them may have been meant for entertaining. On the list were white and red wine, Absolut vodka, Beefeater gin, Courvoisier cognac, and Chivas Regal blended Scotch, along with his favorite — Jack Daniels. Ever the consummate host, Sinatra also made sure his dressing room was stocked with mixers such as club soda, tonic water, ginger ale, and Coke, along with a bucket of ice, six rocks glasses, and 12 wine glasses.

Frank Sinatra's typical tipple, Jack Daniel's, was something he picked up from the comedian Jackie Gleason. At one point, he referred to it onstage as "the nectar of the gods," and this endorsement gave the brand global recognition along with a massive sales boost. Sinatra's fondness for the drink lasted his entire lifetime and beyond, as he was even buried with his beloved bourbon. He didn't just swig the stuff straight from the bottle, though; he poured it in a specific ratio now known as Frank's Way, which is 3:2:1: three ice cubes, two fingers of whiskey, and one splash of water.

Sinatra also enjoyed a martini, of course, since just about everyone was drinking them in mid-century America. His martinis, too, had to be made a specific way: with Beefeater gin and just a tiny bit of vermouth, served on the rocks and garnished with a lemon peel twist. He ordered a different cocktail when he frequented the NYC eatery P.J. Clarke's, however. The restaurant's motto — "We were old before it was cool and we were cool before you were born" — could have applied to Sinatra as well as to modern-day patrons, since the establishment dates back to 1884. Needless to say, though, the Chairman of the Board made it even cooler when he sat at the bar sipping on Rusty Nails. Just as it did for Jack Daniels, his patronage established this mixture of Scotch and Drambuie as a must-try drink of the Rat Pack era.