Rickey (13 July 1890, WASHINGTON POST)

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   From the WASHINGTON POST, 13 July 1890, pg. 9:

      _MID-SUMMER DRINKS._
_Seasonable Concoctions That Have Their Merits and Demerits._
   The weather foundry, which General Greely edits, predicts some more Chicago weather this week, so prepare to perspire.  In order to alleviate the distress of his fellow-sufferers the writer has been looking into the merits of several new combinations of liquids with a view to recommending something mildly exhilarating, something cooling but not too stimulating.
   One of the latest combinations is a whisky fizz, which seems to be about like all fizzes, save that bourbon is substituted for the usual article in alcohol.  It is not to be recommended, however.  It spoils good seltzer, and doesn't improve the whisky.  The Joe Rickey comes next.  There is in the minds of the rising generation considerable doubt as to whether the drink was named after Joe Rickey, or the Missouri statesman was christened after the drink.  It is very simple, and tastes like a sour lemonade on a big booze.  The waiter brings you a goblet of cracked ice in which is a squeezed half lime.  You pour in your drink of whisky, and the darkey siphons in enough seltzer to fill the glass.  Then you drink it.  It is right pleasant and has the peculiar advantage inherited in and hither to monopolized by champagne and milk punches.  You don't know that you have been drinking anything until you are so drunk that you don't know you have had anything to drink.
   For people who perspire freely and want something cooling, which will stay by and not make them thirstier than ever, a ginger-ale sour is recommended.  A. C. Buel invented it, and it is very fine. (...)