CON: Gin and vermouth went into the annals of mixology as a Martini, not a Turf Club. Also, as the drink’s popularity grew, nobody ever stepped forward to claim the drink for the Turf Club. (On the other hand, the use of Martini vermouth might have affected the name; see the Judge Martine Theory. Also, the early dissolution of the Turf Club would’ve helped to take the name out of circulation. And if Thomas Burnett, the club’s head bartender, was responsible for the invention he was in no position to take credit, seeing as he was killed in a train wreck in 1883, a couple of years before the drink really caught on.)
VERDICT: In a muddle like this, anything is possible.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
A list of every book, pamphlet, article, item, blog, post, or squib I have consulted in the assembly of the present work would swell what is already a bulky text beyond any reasonable limits. To some degree, it would also be redundant: I have included sources for each of the recipes, and attempted to give enough information elsewhere to allow quotations to be tracked down by those determined to further pursue them. I will therefore not even attempt to list all the pre-Prohibition books and periodicals I have consulted in the two years I’ve spent writing this book, or the secondary sources I have turned to to corroborate what I found there.
There is, however, a clutch of modern books—by which I mean ones written after the close of the Saloon Age—that have very much helped me to form my views on Jerry Thomas and the drinks of his age (at least, the parts of those views that make sense), and I would be remiss in not citing them. William Grimes’s Straight Up or On the Rocks (2001) is still the best connected narrative of the history of mixed drinking in America, followed by Gary Regan’s introduction to The Joy of Mixology (2003). Lowell Edmunds’s Martini, Straight Up (1998), Richard Barksdale Harwell’s The Mint Julep (1975), and Guillermo Toro-Lira’s Alas de los querubines (2006) are all invaluable monographs on essential drinks (the last is a history of Pisco Punch). Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh’s Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails (2005) is an essential aide to exploring some of the byways of booze. Byron and Sharon Peregrine Johnson’s pioneering Wild West Bartenders’ Bible (1986) is still the best modern look at how you ran an old-time saloon. Henry Crowgey’s Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking (1971) is thorough, accurate, and uninfected by bourbon jingoism. Stanley Clisby Arthur’s 1937 Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em is one of the first attempts to uncover the history of American drinks and still of great value. For any questions of technique, I have made a beeline to Dale DeGroff’s Craft of the Cocktail (2002). If Dale can’t do it, it can’t be done.
The things that have made this possible though, are the computerized databases of nineteenth-century books and periodicals. As I noted in the Introduction, Cocktails, Punches, Fizzes, and the like were not considered worthy of headlines or historical attention, and their traces in the press of the day are well buried, if omnipresent. To dig them up the old-fashioned way, by scrolling through reel after reel of microfilm, is a lifetime’s work. Thankfully, such a thing as Optical Character Recognition software exists, imperfect as it is. But with its help, this buried culture of the bar can be unearthed and examined. This is truly a revolution in the study of popular culture (if it can uncover something as trivial as the history of the Florodora Cooler, think what it can do with things that are really important, like the origins of jazz). In general, though, it should be noted that this technology is all very new and making it yield useful results requires persistence and often more ingenuity than I am able to command.
Two of the most useful and best-designed of these databases are also entirely free. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was a beautifully written paper, and the Brooklyn Public Library has every issue from 1841 to 1902 (http://brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle) available online. Google Books is also easy to use, and the sheer number of obscure volumes available to search—and view in full text!—is staggering (http://books.google.com); and when you’re done there, check out their patent search (www.google.com/patents); lots of cool barware. Equally useful and well-designed are the databases supplied by ProQuest for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and a handful of other urban dailies as well as a goodly collection of other old periodicals, including the indispensable Police Gazette. Unfortunately, some of these (the newspapers; check the individual papers’ websites) are quite expensive, charging several dollars for articles that may or may not have what you are looking for and others (the American Periodical Series) cannot be accessed at home at all. As long as you’re trooping off to a major research library, it’s also worth having a look in the America’s Historical Newspapers database. While ProQuest is better on the latter part of our period, this one is better on the earlier part.
Then there’s NewspaperArchive (www.newspaperarchive.com). This one you can access at home, as much as you want for a quite reasonable yearly fee. Millions and millions of pages of American (and a few foreign) newspapers, all scanned and searchable. But the scanning is atrocious, frequently yielding gobbledygook (to be fair, their source microfilm is often illegible) and your results cannot be displayed in chronological order. In short, it requires the temperament of Buddha and the patience of a rock to wring meaningful results out of this resource, but there is more gold there for the collecting than anywhere else. (NewspaperArchive has few of the big urban papers and many, many small-town ones, but then as now these tended to run items from their city cousins.)
Finally, I must mention the Library of Congress’s invaluable American Memory Collection, a massive pile of digital stuff that includes hundreds of travel books, newspapers, magazines, and other writings of precisely the sorts in which the history of mixology lurks (http://memory.loc.gov). Without these, and a number of others besides—the archives of the Times of London, the fantastic Internet Library of Early Journals (free at www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej)—this would have been a far poorer, and thinner, book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I could not have done this by myself. Well, parts of it I could have—the jumping to conclusions, the unsubstantiated opinionizing, the throwing my hands up in the air and saying “Who the hell knows,” all that stuff I can do without any help whatsoever. But wherever I’ve managed to avoid that and actually offer something substantial that makes sense, I’ve had help. I can’t thank everyone who pitched in here—hell, so may people have rallied around this project that I can’t even remember everyone (it doesn’t help that a significant part of the road-testing was conducted in bars). In other words, if your name is not on this list and should be, you have my sincere apologies and it’s my round.
There are some people without whom there would be no book at all. The divine Ms. Theodora Sutcliffe, although contemplating a book on the Professor herself, was generous enough to share her research with me at a very early stage, which infected me with the bug. Throughout this project, Dale DeGroff has been my model of the perfect saloonkeeper, a wise and convivial presence who can meet any challenge with confident good humor and competence; he and the Professor would have got along famously. My editor, Marian Lizzi, has been patient beyond belief with a project that stretched far beyond its appointed bounds; no author could hope for better. My agent, Janis Donnaud, stuck with this celebration of the life and works of somebody few people have ever heard of until it found its perfect home. My fellow partners in Beverage Alcohol Resource, Dale (again), Doug Frost, Steve Olson, and Paul Pacult, displayed remarkable forbearance as my writing drew me away from our collective enterprise. Brendan Vaughan, Tara Q. Thomas, and David Mahoney, my editors at Esquire, Wine & Spirits, and Drinks, respectively, were similarly tolerant.
There are many, many other people who assisted in the research. Some—William Grimes, Angus Winchester, John C. Burton, and John Myers—lent or even outright gave me rare old bartender’s guides, the essential building blocks of this book. Many others were kind enough to answer my queries, look things up for me or even send me items of interest even without my
asking, among them Brian Rea, Gary Regan, Phil Greene (whose brother Ed procured me a copy of Dick & Fitzgerald’s original 1859 copyright), Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh (who provided lots of good advice and a few rare illustrations), Lowell Edmunds, George Thompson, Guillermo Toro-Lira, Robert Hess, Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown, Philip Duff of Bols (who generously sent me enough corenwyn to test the gin drinks), Chris McMillan, Paul Erickson, Jeff Pogash, John Burton (who graciously allowed me to use the business card of Jerry Thomas in his collection), Mauro Mahjoub, Jorg Meier, George Sinclair, Michael Waterhouse, Barry Popik, and David A. Smith of the New York Public Library.
Besides taking some wonderful photographs of vintage barware that we ultimately couldn’t find space for, Nick Noyes has provided me with venues and support to test some many of the larger recipes herein, as have Melissa Clark and Sherwin Dunner. Audrey Saunders and her crew at Pegu Club and Julie Reiner and hers at the Flatiron Lounge have made many an old drink to my specifications and acted as sounding boards for my half-mixed theories, and it is at their establishments you will find me—there, or online with Robert Hess at his DrinkBoy board or with the cocktail geeks who loiter on www.egullet.com.
Finally, my wife, Karen, and my daughter, Marina. Thanks, guys (and Karen, now you can have the dining room back). Without you, the book would mean nothing.
A FEW RECOLLECTIONS OF THE DISTANT PAST
The double Bronxes at the Holland House . . . the stingers at the Belmont . . . the silver fizzes at the Manhattan . . . the ginger-ale highballs at the bar of the Buckingham . . . the Benedictine at the Lafayette . . . the seidels of Münchner at Lüchows . . . the Navy Rainbows at Maxim’s . . . the Château Yquem at Mouquin’s . . . the Manhattan Cocktails at the Hotel Knickerbocker . . . the gin daisies at the Astor . . . the yellow chartreuse at the Brevoort . . . the Infuriators at the Beaux Arts . . . the pousse-cafés at Rector’s . . . the Stone Fences at Churchill’s . . . the milk punches at the Savoy . . . the Martinis at Sherry’s . . . the champagne cocktails at Delmonico’s . . . the Central Park Souths at the Plaza . . . the sherry flips at the Cadillac . . . the Clover Clubs at Bustanoby’s . . . the Jack Roses at Eberlin’s . . . the beakers of stout at Dinty Moore’s . . . the Louis Röderer at Martin’s . . . the mint juleps at the Casino . . . the kummel, with a dash of tabasco, at the Fifth Avenue . . . the Tom & Jerry at Shanley’s . . . the Pilsener with scrambled eggs and Irish bacon at 5 a.m. at Jack’s. . . .
—Life magazine, 1925
INDEX
Absinthe Cocktail
Absinthe Frappé
absinthe spirits
Ale Sangaree
Alexander, Cato
Alexander, J. E.
Anderson, Tom
applejack spirits
Apple Martini
Appletinis
Apple Toddy
Aviation Cocktail
Bakewell Punch
Baldwin, Charlie H.
Baltimore Egg Nogg
Bamboo Cocktail
Barbadoes Punch
Barbados Blackstrap
bar gear
cherries and olives
eggs
glassware
ice
sugar
twists
Barnum, P. T.
Barrough, Philip
Berry Interesting
berry syrups
Bijou Cocktail
bitters
see also recipes
Blackthorn Sours
Blow My Skull Off (Almost)
Blue Blazer
Boker’s Bitters
Bombo. See Toddies
Boorde, Andrew
Boothby, Bill
Borthwick, John
“A Bowl of Punch,”
Brandy Julep
Brandy Punch
Brandy Sangaree
Brandy Sling
brandy spirits
Brandy Toddy
Bronx Cocktail
Buck and Breck
Burnt Brandy
Byron, O. H.
Calvino
Campbell, Charles B.
Campbell, Charles W.
Canfield, Richard
Catawba. See Chatham Artillery Punch
Catawba Cobbler
Chambers, Robert
Champagne Cobbler
Champagne Cocktail
champagne spirits
Champarelle
Chatham Artillery of Savannah
Chatham Artillery Punch
cherries
Cherry Smash
Chinese Cocktail
Chocolate Martinis
Claret Cobbler
Claret Punch
Clemens, Samuel
Clover Club (Friar’s Club)
Clover Club Cocktail
Clover Leaf
Coal Brandy
Cobblers
see also recipes
Cocktail (Fancy)
Cocktail (Improved)
Cocktail (Plain)
Cocktail, birth of
Gold Rush era and
growing up and
New York and points south and west and
where and when and
see also Crustas Cocktails
Cocktail glass
Cocktails (plain, fancy, improved, and old-fashioned)
Fancy
history of
Holland Gin Cocktail
Improved
Plain
Prince of Wales’s Cocktail
Sazerac Cocktail
see also Crustas Cocktails; recipes
Cocktails, evolved
Buck and Breck
Champagne Cocktail
East India Cocktail
history of
Japanese Cocktail
Jersey Cocktail
Morning Glory Cocktail
Widow’s Kiss
see also Crustas Cocktails; recipes
Coffee Cocktail
Cold Sling
Cold Whiskey Punch
Collins, John
Collins glass
Colony of Schuylkill
Columbia Skin. See Whisky Skin
Continental Sour
Coolers, popular
Florodora
Florodora Sextette and
history of
Joe Rickey
see also recipes
Cooper, James Fenimore
Coughlin, John
Cozzen, Frederick S.
Craddock, Harry
Crosswell, Harry
Crushed Strawberry Fizz
Crustas Cocktails
Aviation Cocktail
Bronx Cocktail
Clover Club Cocktail
Daiquiri Cocktail
Gin Crusta
history of
Jack Rose Cocktail
Ward Eight
see also recipes
Curaçao (Curaçoa) spirits
Curaçoa Punch
Daiquiri Cocktail
Daisies
New School
Old School
Dale, Alan
Dana, Richard Henry
Decanter Bitters, Jerry Thomas’s Own
de Lafayette, Marquis
Desmond, Norma
Dickens, Charles
Dirty Girl Scout
Dizzy Sours
Doolittle, Richard
Doten, Alf
Dr. Stoughton’s Elixir Magnum
see also Crustas Cocktails
Drinks: How to Mix and Serve
Dry Martini Cocktail
Duffy, Patrick Gavin
Earle, George
East India Cocktail
Edward, Albert (Prince of Whales)
egg drinks
Egg Nogg
Flips
history of
Tom & Jerry
see also recipes
Egg Milk Punch
Egg Nogg (basic)
eggs
Egg Sou
r
El Dorado Punch
Electric Current Fizz
Elixir Magnum Stomachicum. See Dr. Stoughton’s Elixir Magnum
Elks’ Fizz
Enchantress
Ensslin, Hugo
Eppinger, Louis
Eye Openers
Fancy Vermouth Cocktail
Fiscal Agent
Fixes
Fizz (defined)
Fizz glass
Fizzes see also recipes
Fletcher, John
Flips
Florodora (basic)
Florodora, Imperial Style
Florodora Sextette
Foster, James
Foster, Stephen
fruit syrups see also recipes
Gascoine, George
Gebhard, Frederick
General Harrison’s Egg Nogg
Gibson, Walter . K.
Gibson Cocktail
Gilfain, Cyrus W.
Gin Crusta
Gin Julep
Gin Punch
Gin Rickey
gin spirits
Gin Toddy, Hot
glassware
Golden Fizz
Gold Rush era
Green, Daisy
Green Fizz
Gum Syrup (Bartender’s)
Gum Syrup (True)
Hartwell, Richard Barksdale
Helper, Hinton
Highball
Hildreth, Fred