I was in a bar a few nights ago, and was chatting with the (very attractive) female bartender. She told me that she knew “every” drink ever made. From somewhere in my memory, I recalled that Mark Twain (in the “Innocents Abroad”) once ordered a “brandy smash”-I asked for one, and she was puzzled-anybody know how it was made?
Where could I find out about the kinds of mixed drinks people drank, in the 19th century?
If you google Brandy Smash you get a number of recipes. Here’s one:
Take 1 tea-spoonful of white sugar
2 table-spoonfuls of water
3 or 4 sprigs of tender mint
1 wine-glass full of brandy
1.Press the mint in the sugar and water to extract the flavor, add the brandy, and fill the glass two-thirds full of shaved ice.
2.Stir thoroughly, and ornament with a half a slice of orange, and a few fresh sprigs of mint. Serve with a straw.
Too lazy to look, but I bet a dollar if you look in Google Books they’ll have some bartender’s manual from 1860 or something. If that fails, look in manuals for pharmacists (“chemists” in England); they have information on everything… house paint, cough cures, sasparilla, dyes for hats, fireworks, everything.
Mint Juleps?
You want to pick up Jerry Thomas’s “The Bon Vivant’s Companion”. It was published in 1862, and has a fairly large collection of cocktail recipes.
You can find it on Google Books.
A friend of mine who is a bit of a cocktail historian says the Sazerac and the Old-Fashioned are the two “original” cocktails. I have no idea what exactly he means by that and I’m too lazy to google it, so take it for what it’s worth.
Of course, the Old-Fashioned was called “The New-Fangled” at first.
Captain Amazing, I am deeply chagrinned that I didn’t see that coming.
Classics never die. Being in retail liquor sales has pretty much made me puke just thinking about the shit swill that the kids come up with. Can’t wait for bologna flavored vodka!
Already got bacon flavored vodka. Can bologna be far behind?
(Gets out his Everyday Life in the 1800s sourcebook and opens to the Food Drink and Tobacco chapter.)
[ul]
[li]Ale cocktail (1838 on)[/li][li]Apple jack (Throughout the century)[/li][li]Baldface (Slang for whiskey)[/li][li]Bimbo (Brandy, sugar, and lemon)[/li][li]Brandy sour (From at least the 1860s)[/li][li]Brandy toddy (No date)[/li][li]Champagne (Throughout)[/li][li]Cobbler (Mid-century)[/li][li]Corn juice (Slang for corn liquor)[/li][li]Flip (Throughout)[/li][li]Ginger beer (Throughout)[/li][li]Gin-sling (Throughout)[/li][li]Martini (1860)[/li][li]Syllabub (Early century – Christmas drink)[/li][/ul]Also listed is the drink menu from a “fashionable bar-room” in the 1840s. There are 45 drinks on it, including ten variations of julep. I’ll type those up on request, but who knows what Tip and Ty or Phlegm-cutter refer to.
Sylabub actually predates the 19th century. They drank it/ate it in the 16th.
The Cherry Bounce was possible; Martha Washington gave a recipe in her journal.
http://www.beekman1802.com/general/two-cherry-bounce-cocktails.html
And of course, Sydney Carton made his own punch in A Tale of Two Cities:
(Trying to post this again; it didn’t work earlier due to the recurring board problems.)
Another good book for info on old-school drinks is Imbibe by David Wondrich.
DesertDog, I’d be curious about your book’s source of information on the martini; that date sounds pretty early.
Well, Martini and Rossi started making vermouth in 1863, so it would have been sometime after that.
I simplified it a bit. The entire entry reads, martini: a drink comprised of gin and vermouth, invented between 1860-1862 and briefly known as a Martinez. and there is no citation there. The chapter is Food, Drink, and Tobacco and there are six references for the chapter, most of them sounding like cookbooks. The two that don’t are:
Bartlett, John, Dictionary of Americanisms, 1849, reprinted by Crown Publishers, 1989
Campbell, Hannah, Why Did They Name it . . .?, Fleet Publishing, 1964
I’d bet the latter is where they got martini/martinez. Wiki prefers the name from Martini & Rossi vermouth story rather than the Martinez (California) story. It also notes that the vermouth was introduced in 1863.