[3] Another version now considered more probable recounts a 1968 interview with a relative of a prominent San Francisco businessman named Walter D. K. Gibson, who claimed to have created the drink at the Bohemian Club in the 1890s.

[5] Other reporting supports this theory; Edward Townsend, former vice president of the Bohemian Club, is credited with the first mention of the Gibson in print, in a humorous essay he wrote for the New York World published in 1898.

Even the towns of Gibsonville, Seventy-Six, Pine Grove, Whiskey Diggings, and several others, did their trading here.Other stories of the drink's origins feature apocryphal businessmen, including an American diplomat who served in Europe during Prohibition.

Although said to be a teetotaller, he often had to attend cocktail receptions, where he'd ask for a martini glass filled with cold water, garnished with a small onion so he could distinguish his drink from others.

A similar story involves an investment banker named Gibson, who would take his clients out for the proverbial three-martini business lunches.