Sour (cocktail) gin, lemon juice, and sugar. Adding carbonated water to this turns it into a gin fizz. It was popular during the 1940s, and Kevin Starr includes it in "an array of drinks (the gin sour, the whiskey sour, the Gin Rickey, the Tom Collins, the Pink Lady, the Old Fashioned) that now seem period pieces, evocative of another era." White Lady (also known as a Delilah, or Chelsea Side-car) is essentially a sidecar made with gin in place of brandy. What makes it different from the simple gin sour is the switching of sugar for triple sec. The cocktail sometimes
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