A toast to Lady Lindy's Maiden Voyage

May it go down smoother than the flight

By PINK LADY

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Amelia Earhart was already famous when she set out for her first solo flight across the Atlantic on May 20th, 1932. She made headlines as the first woman passenger on a transatlantic flight four years earlier in 1928. The widely publicized event skyrocketed Earhart to international fame, earning her the nickname "Lady Lindy." Book deals, a lecture tour, her own luggage and clothing line, and a spokeswoman position with Lucky Strike followed, despite Earhart's role as merely a guest on the plane. Four years later, she'd make the trip again, on her own, exactly five years after Charles Lindbergh's landmark flight.

On the morning of May 20th, Earhart departed Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in a cherry-red Lockheed Vega 5B bound for Paris, amid strong winds and icy conditions. The flight lasted 14 hours and 54 minutes, and was plagued by mechanical problems that caused an unexpected landing in a pasture near Londonderry in Northern Ireland: After "scaring all the cows in the neighborhood," she "pulled up in a farmer's backyard."

Earhart's successful solo journey earned her a Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover, and cemented her reputation as a skilled and influential female aviatrix. To her, it also proved that women were equal to men in "jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower."

We'll drink to that.

BLUE SKIES

1 oz Applejack

1 oz gin

0.5 oz lemon juice

0.25 oz simple syrup

1 or 2 dashes grenadine

Shake with cracked ice and strain into your favorite vintage cocktail glass.

CIN-CIN!

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LADY LINDY, CHECK OUT LUPECBOSTON.COM.