Many of our favorite recipes were developed by tinkering with the recipe of another drink, and the East Village Athletic Club is a study in how well this approach can work. Jim Meehan and his fellow mixologists at PDT started with the classic Last Word template, changed the ratios, and swapped out every ingredient to arrive at a drink with none of the DNA of the original, and yet no shortage of its charm and balance.
Once the new recipe was perfected, the PDT folks christened it the East Village Athletic Club, substituting their neighborhood in a nod to the Detroit Athletic Club, where the Last Word was invented.
The PDT recipe calls for Yellow Chartreuse, the sweetest of the yellow herbal liqueurs. If you have another type, like Strega or Salers, you might want to add a teaspoon of simple syrup to keep the drink from skewing too bitter.
