Joe Gilmore (born 19 May 1922) was one of the longest running Head Barmen at The Savoy Hotel's American Bar. Gilmore started as a trainee barman at The American Bar in 1940 and was appointed Head Barman in 1955, a position he held until he retired in 1976. Over his years as Head Barman, Gilmore invented numerous cocktails to mark special events and important guests, a longstanding tradition at the American Bar. Gilmore has invented cocktails in honor of a number of royalty, politicians and celebrities including The Prince of Wales, Prince William, The Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, The Prince Andrew, Sir Winston Churchill, and American Presidents Harry S. Truman and Richard Nixon. He also invented cocktails to commemorate the first walk on the moon in 1969 by Neil Armstrong, and the American and Russian link-up in space in 1975. He was born in Belfast.
In addition to serving five generations of royals at private receptions and parties, Gilmore has also served Errol Flynn, Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Grace Kelly, George Bernard Shaw, Ernest Hemingway, Noël Coward, Agatha Christie, Alice Faye, Ingrid Bergman, Julie Andrews, Laurence Olivier Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
Famous quotes containing the words joe and/or gilmore:
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
His friends and merry men are we;
And when the troop of Tarleton rides,
We burrow in the cypress tree.
The turfy hammock is our bed,
Our home is in the red deer’s den,
Our roof, the tree-top overhead,
For we are wild and hunted men.”
—William Gilmore Simms (1806–1872)