Gibson (cocktail) than the onion into the 1930s and beyond, but still none use bitters. The famous Polished Gibson is garnished with a potato. The drink is traditionally made with gin, but the vodka Gibson is also common. The exact origin of the Gibson is unclear, with numerous popular tales and theories about its genesis. According to one popular theory Charles Dana Gibson is responsible for the creation of the Gibson, when he supposedly challenged Charley Connolly, the bartender of the Players Club in New York City, to improve upon the martini's recipe, so Connolly simply substituted an onion for the olive
Gibson (cocktail) column, as well as in his book "The Good Man's Weakness". A.P. Gibson remembered that when he was a boy, his great-uncle, prominent San Francisco businessman Walter D. K. Gibson (1864–1938), was said to have created it at the Bohemian Club in the 1890s. Charles Clegg, when asked about it by Herb Caen, also said it was from San Francisco. Eric Felton, writing in the "Wall Street Journal", May 30, 2009 "A Thoroughly Western Cocktail" considers this version correct; he cites Ward Thompson, a Bohemian Club member whose mention of it in 1898 is the first recorded in print. Although