According to "The Joy of Cooking," far and away my favorite cookbook, The Gibson is named after Hugh Gibson, an American diplomat serving abroad in Europe, who was renowned for his ability to hold his liqueur--particularly his version of a Martini (he liked onions as garnish, rather than olives). Turns out, the teetotaling Gibson always conspired with the bartenders before hand, ensuring that the glass with the onion was, in fact, water, allowing him to, in the words of Kipling, "keep [his] head when all about [him] are losing theirs…" Eventually, the onion caught on, in both gin and vodka, and the Gibson was born.

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