Pink Lady (cocktail) need to mask the gin's bad taste. At the latest in the 1930s the Pink Lady started to acquire the image of a typical "female" or "girly" drink due to its name and sweet creamy flavor usually associated with a woman's taste in publications like "Esquire's" "Handbook for Hosts" (1949). It is said of the Hollywood star and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, that she used to drink a Pink Lady before a meal. Subsequently, the cocktail fell out of favour with male cocktail critics, who were put off by its alleged "female" nature. The writer and bartender Jack Townsend speculated
The Cocktail Hour opens on Bradley and Ann having preprandial cocktails with their middle-aged, ostensibly single son and daughter. The cocktail hour stretches out because "the maid doesn't know how to cook a roast". So the little family carries on consuming increasing amounts of alcohol leading to increasing arguments. Their son, John, is an editor at a publishing company and a part-time playwright. He has written a play that seems to present an unflattering picture of the family, and the parents are upset. The discussion of John's play, which is also called "The Cocktail Hour", gives Gurney a lot of opportunity to lampoon