Читать книгу Gilded Age Cocktails - Cecelia Tichi - Страница 8

“One more round, if you please . . . I’ll have another.”

While a fair location and standard stock of whiskies and kegs might guarantee a bar’s modest success, during the Gilded Age a Svengali of cocktails raised the oasis of alcoholic drinks to new Himalayan heights. As requests and plaudits rained, gifted mixologists soloed behind mahogany countertops, their movements as deft as the nimblest jugglers, precise as laboratory chemists, efficient as well-calibrated time-pieces, and intuitive as psychologists who assessed their clients’ deepest needs and desires. Cocktail “engineering” elevated these inventors to the stratosphere of libations and each “majestic figure,” swathed in his white apron, could be a candidate for a hall of fame for Gilded Age men of the bar. Such honorees might include John F. Peterson, principal bartender of Kirk & Co.’s bar on lower Broadway, synonymous with “bibulous respectability,” whose “resplendent bald head” was “a beacon” guiding patrons to his bar; Charley Sander of the Tall Tower in the basement of the Tribune at the corner of Spruce and Nassau, the site of the original Tammany Hall, “whose moustache compared with any of the day with its tip-top measurement”; Charley McCarty, who “presided with dignity and efficiency” over the barroom of the St. James Hotel at Broadway and Twenty-Sixth; and Billy Patterson, who claimed “that he could win the lasting friendship of any man if he were but permitted to mix him a drink.”

But the true Paul Bunyan of the bar, and its peripatetic maestro, was indisputably Jerry Thomas. Born in 1830 in New Haven, Connecticut, to parents who hoped their son would be called to the ministry, Jerry would eventually find his pulpit behind the bar, dispensing his inventive delectations across numerous states of the Union and abroad. The restless Thomas apprenticed in saloons from New Orleans to San Francisco, honed his craft at Planters’ House in St. Louis and the silver mining boomtown of Nevada’s Virginia City, and poured libations as far away as London. He even served a stint at a New York bar near P. T. Barnum’s museum, which had featured Tom Thumb and a strutting “Hercules” in a Yankee Doodle suit.

Thomas won early fame for his Blue Blazer, a pyrotechnic dazzler he developed while bartending at the El Dorado Saloon in the San Francisco gold rush days. “On a bitter night,” writes one chronicler, a customer arrived “fresh from the isolation of the gold fields” to demand that Thomas serve him “the flames of hell in liquid form ‘that’ll shake me right down to the gizzard.’” For persuasive purposes, the customer wore pistols, “with which to enforce his extravagant demands.”

Thomas gave “due consideration” to this “chemical” problem, then gathered two silver mugs, scotch whisky, boiling water, sugar, a lemon peel, and went to work. According to one witness, “there was a hush as the piping liquid sizzled down the long-parched throat.” The drink left the gold miner “awestruck,” and “with what voice he could muster, the fellow assured Professor Thomas that his gizzard had, indeed, been shaken.” The signature beverage:

Blue Blazer

Ingredients

 2 hot silver mugs (with insulated handles)

 1 or 2 ounces scotch whisky

 4 ounces boiling water

 2 lumps sugar

 Lemon peel

Directions

1. Pour scotch into first mug.

2. Pour water and sugar into second mug.

3. Set scotch alight and allow to burn for about 2 minutes while pouring it into second mug.

4. Quickly pour lighted mixture back and forth from mug to mug.

5. When fire is extinguished, serve in one of the mugs with lemon peel. (Additional whisky can be added.)

Thomas eventually assumed a posting as principal bartender at New York’s Metropolitan Hotel at Prince Street and Broadway, “in the days when the metropolis was the scene of the soundest drinking on earth,” where he set a diamond-studded standard. Diamonds were a necessity for “the presentation of self” in Gilded Age New York, and the man behind the bar owed his customers and himself a glittering array from cuffs to collar. Called “public jewels,” diamonds were “meant to be noticed, gaped at, admired, and desired,” and mandatory for “anyone who played a part on the urban stage.” Jerry Thomas glittered as he worked, “all ablaze with diamonds,” including “gorgeous diamond rings” flashing on his fingers.

Gilded Age manuals abounded with how-to-advice for every conceivable occupation, from clerk to cook, prizefighter to engineer, and with his encyclopedic knowledge Thomas promised to introduce Americans to the sophisticated libations known throughout Britain, Europe, and Russia. His first Bar-tender’s Guide, published in 1862, offered ten straightforwardly named cocktails: Bottle, Brandy, Fancy Brandy, Whiskey, Champagne, Gin, Fancy Gin, Japanese, Soda, and Jersey. An expanded 1877 edition—The Bon-Vivant’s Companion—became a much-sought directory of Gilded Age libations. Its menu of 130 drinks (“in endless variety”) included the Locomotive, the Balaklava Nector, the Spread Eagle, and numerous encyclopedic listings for every taste and mood. Thomas’s “Manual for Manufacture” gave America its modern cocktail menu and made the nation’s bartenders lifelong grateful acolytes of the “Professor.”

Thomas’s signature New York cocktail was a playful twist on his name:

Tom and Jerry

Ingredients

 1 ounce brandy

 ½ ounce rum

 ½ egg yolk

 1 cup whole milk

 Nutmeg

Directions

1. Warm milk and add egg yolk.

2. Add milk and yolk to warmed cup or mug.

3. Add brandy and rum.

4. Stir, dust with grated nutmeg, and serve.

Another renowned bartender, Johnny Solon (or Solan) of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria, was celebrated for exquisite improvisation, an unmatched ability to invent a pleasing brand-new cocktail on the spot. Though few soloists of the shaker and swizzle stick have recounted the tales of their exploits, Johnny Solon’s invention of the Bronx cocktail was detailed by Albert Steven Crockett (b. 1873), who claims that he heard the story from Solon and recorded it verbatim in his classic Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book.

Solon was mixing a popular cocktail, the Duplex, when a head waiter at the hotel leaned across the bar and issued a challenge:

“Why don’t you get up a new cocktail?” asked the tempter in the tones of a dare. “I have a customer who says you can’t do it.”

“Can’t I?” replied Solon, who finished the Duplex and prepared to meet the challenge, starting with “the equivalent of two jiggers of Gordon Gin” poured into a mixing glass. He then filled “the jigger with orange juice so it made one-third orange juice and two-thirds of gin.” He added a dash each of Italian and French vermouths and shook the “thing” up.

Solon swore he did not taste the result, but immediately “poured it into a cocktail glass and handed it” to his challenger, who downed the drink “whole.” “By God! You’ve really got something new!” he exclaimed, “A big hit.” “The demand started that day,” recalled Solon. “Pretty soon we were using a whole case of oranges a day. And then several cases.”

What to call the new libation? It happened that Johnny Solon had recently visited the Bronx Zoological Park, which had opened in 1899, and the park was on his mind as he mixed the experimental new drink—voilà, the Bronx was created. The cocktail lived on, featured on the drink menus and wine lists at other hotels, such as Boston’s Copley-Plaza and Manhattan’s Albemarle Hoffman. Variations of the Bronx appeared by and by, but the following recipe hews to Johnny Solon’s own recollection. (The ice is presumed.)

The Duplex

Ingredients

 1½ ounces French vermouth

 1½ ounces Italian vermouth

 Orange peel or orange bitters

Directions

1. Combine vermouths in glass with ice.

2. Add squeezed orange peel or bitters.

3. Stir and serve.

The Bronx (Original)

Ingredients

 2 parts gin

 1 part orange juice

 1 dash French vermouth

 1 dash Italian vermouth

 Ice cubes

Directions

1. Add 2–3 ice cubes to shaker.

2. Add gin and orange juice to shaker.

3. Add dashes of vermouth.

4. Shake, strain, and serve.

Had Johnny Solon guessed that his Bronx cocktail would be a smash hit, he might have considered naming it for himself, as did the mixologist who devised another classic cocktail of the age. The formula for the Gin Fizz concocted in the 1880s by Henry C. Ramos at Meyer’s Hotel Internationale restaurant in New Orleans was as mysterious as it was pleasing, for Ramos was loath to reveal his secret. When word spread, customers clamored for the famous fizzes. By 1900, the Kansas City Star proclaimed that “Ramos serves a gin fizz that is not equaled anywhere.” He later moved on to the Imperial Cabinet Saloon, where Mardi Gras revelers saw dozens of hired “shaker boys” behind the bar, flexing their biceps in service to the master bartender’s Gin Fizz.

Ramos Gin Fizz

Ingredients

 1½ ounces gin

 ½ ounce simple syrup

 1 dash orange flower water

 1 egg white

 ⅓ ounce lemon juice

 2 ounces light cream

Directions

1. Fill shaker midway with ice cubes.

2. Add gin and other ingredients.

3. Shake thoroughly (2 minutes).

4. Strain and serve.

The author of another landmark guide, A. William Schmidt, a German immigrant who worked in Chicago’s Tivoli Garden before arriving in New York in 1884, was working out of a rundown bar next to the Brooklyn Bridge when he was discovered by a reporter from the New York Sun. His cocktails, often crafted of upward of ten ingredients, commanded five dollars apiece (the equivalent of about $130 today) when others were charging fifteen cents, and his recipes for novel drinks for holidays and special occasions were printed in newspapers around the world. For Christmas Eve 1900, his Kaiser’s Dream and Siesta were headlined as “Some Wondrous New XMAS Drinks” in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

Schmidt’s 1891 compendium The Flowing Bowl: When and What to Drink, attributed to “The Only William,” offered sage advice on water, tea, coffee—and milk, “one of the healthiest, most nutritive, and very digestive of beverages.” But with “Full Instructions on How to Prepare, Mix, and Serve Beverages,” his compendium flowed with wine, beer, spirits, and all pertinent compounds, including some fifty cocktails. With this manual for aspirant bartenders, the author proffered his motto: “True happiness is gained by making others happy.” “A man in my profession should never forget that he is a gentleman,” Schmidt insisted. “However well-mixed a drink is, much of the flavor will be lost unless politeness is added. A true artist should infuse courtesy and quality into all his liquid pictures.” His advice and counsel:

1 1. As an appropriate suit behind the bar, I would recommend the following: a pair of black trousers, a long, white apron, a white shirt, a white collar, a black tie, a white vest, and a white coat; care should be taken to have the suit fit well; have the sleeves of your coat cut, that you may button it tight; this will prevent its getting soiled and worn out; never have your suit starched.

2 2. Clean the top of your counter first, remove all utensils from under the counter and place them on top; clean your bench.

3 3. Fill all your liquor bottles . . . cut up the fruit for immediate use, clean your silverware.

4 4. Never allow yourself to be idle behind the bar.

5 5. A bottle never must be more than half empty.

6 6. In serving a strained drink, you begin by serving a glass of ice water.

7 7. For strong drinks, always serve two glasses—one for the drink, the other for the water.

8 8. When you are not pushed for time, while you are making mixed drinks, cool your glasses with ice before you serve your drink.

9 9. You may place your glasses together in the form of a pyramid and ornament your structure with fruits and flowers.

10 10. When a drink is made with ice and then strained, there should be nothing left in the glass but the liquid; the fruit would hinder you in drinking, it would touch the moustache; if you want to eat it, you can’t get it out.

11 11. When you have a drink in which the ice is to remain, in this case use plenty of fruits, as it is pleasing to the eye and allows your guest to eat it if he likes.

12 12. Shake your drink well; without that you will never get a first-class drink. Good mixing is hard work; but without mixing you spoil the best liquor.

13 13. For shaking drinks with the shaker, use only a mixing-tumbler; by using goblets you will soil your clothes, and the goblets might break.

14 14. Glassware: In selecting your glassware, choose perfectly white color, also for your bottles, as they look much more inviting. To keep them clean, use egg-shells, salt, paper, or chopped ice.

15 15. Fruits: Lemons intended for squeezing should be peeled before using. The juice ought not to be older than a day. . . . The fresh lemon peel is very useful for flavoring and decorating the drinks.Oranges—a medium size of dark colored ones is the best for squeezing, as well as cutting up. Use from six to twelve oranges, according to the demand of the business.The Delicious Pineapple—Pineapple may be used in the same way as oranges, the juice or syrup being always indispensable.Choice Grapes—To make a drink of inviting appearance, choice grapes are necessary, for decorating as well as simply presenting.

 In addition to these fruits, a few others ought to be kept on hand: Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries. They may be prepared the same way as the other fruits.

 Never handle fruits with your fingers, but use a fancy fruit-fork.

As the cocktail craze took hold, those removed from the centers of sophistication could turn, as in most things, to the catalogue of Sears Roebuck & Co. America’s retail revolution had begun in 1893, when the Midwestern businessmen Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck tapped the US Post Office’s new Rural Free Delivery system to launch an annual mail-order catalogue that offered hardware, clothing, sporting goods, jewelry, furniture, and a host of other consumer products to any home in the country, no matter how distant. The Book and Stationery Department listed atlases, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bestselling novels, histories, children’s books—and in 1897 several volumes on spirits certain to horrify temperance zealots, even as they intrigued the era’s DIY mixologists:

Fleischmann’s Art of Blending and Compounding Liquors and Wines. Showing how all the leading and favorite brands of whiskies, brandies, and other liquors and wines are prepared for the trade by rectifiers, etc., at the present time: with complete and correct recipes for making all the ingredients, flavorings, etc., employed in their manufacture, and the actual cost of each product as offered for sale. By Joseph Fleischmann. Publisher’s price: $2.50. Our price: $1.50.

The Bordeaux Wine and Liquor Dealers’ Guide. A Treatise on the Manufacture, Rectifying and Reduction of Liquors without the use of poisonous or deleterious ingredients, and on the preparation of Wines, Cordials, etc., for dealers’ instruction. It includes also directions for Brewing Ales, Porter, etc., and for compounding Wines, Bitters and Punches, and Colorings and Beading for Liquors. Publisher’s price: $5.00. Our price: $2.00.