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Raffles 1887

DIGITAL-MAGAZINE-1887-USAGE-ONLY-JACKIE KENNEDY-V2
LEGENDARY LIBATIONS

How Jackie Kennedy became a Femme Fatale

THE former US first lady, Jackie Kennedy, had always longed to see Angkor Wat, and when her chance came to visit Cambodia in 1967, she called it “a girlhood dream come true.” Life magazine put her week-long trip on its cover, declaring Mrs Kennedy’s ‘radiance’ to be ‘now as famous in Phnom Penh as it is in Paris’. She even found time, Life reported, to admire Prince Sihanouk’s own jazz compositions.

Yet the visit almost didn’t happen. Relations between Cambodia and the US had been severed in 1965 so Mrs Kennedy needed special permission to enter the country. An invitation was duly issued from Prince Sihanouk, but then there was the not insubstantial problem of how she would get there. There were flights from the US to Bangkok but no onward commercial flights into Cambodia. Problem solved: she and her entourage flew into Phnom Penh on a US Air Force C54, the first US aircraft to touch down in Cambodia for two years. Stepping from the plane on 2 November 1967, one of the 20th century’s most stylish women received a rapturous welcome. Cambodia, like everyone else, adored her.

Naturally Mrs Kennedy was hosted in Phnom Penh by the city’s most prestigious hotel: the Hotel Le Royal, now Raffles Hotel Le Royal. And what better way to commemorate her stay than with a champagne cocktail? After all, her enthusiasm for both champagne and cocktails was well known – indeed, she is said to have caused something of a rumpus at the White House when she replaced the traditional pre-dinner punch with European-style cocktails. 

The elegant, rose-coloured concoction comprised a measure of crème de fraise des bois and a dash of cognac, topped up with chilled champagne. But what to call it? The French phrase for a seductive, beautiful woman seemed perfect (if a tad risqué given Mrs Kennedy’s alleged high-profile lovers). More than 50 years later, the Femme Fatale remains one of the hotel’s most popular libations.

 

What Mrs Kennedy made of the Femme Fatale, history does not, alas, record. However, when the hotel’s Elephant Bar was renovated in 1997, staff came across an unwashed glass with a faint smear of red lipstick. Could it be the very glass from which Jackie Kennedy had sipped her Femme Fatale all those years before? There is certainly no reason why not, and today the glass takes pride of place behind the bar, a poignant reminder of a very special visit.

 

How to make a Femme Fatale

❧ Pour ¼ oz or 7ml of crème de fraise des bois into a champagne flute
❧ Add a dash of cognac
❧ Top up with champagne or sparkling wine
❧ Garnish with a rose

Raffles Hotel Le Royal - Phnom Penh - Cambodia

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