SPIRITS

Here's to the father of mixology

"Imbibe" by David Wondrich
"Imbibe" by David Wondrich

"For a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chief desperado, the chief gambler and the saloon-keeper occupied the same level in society, and it was the highest. The cheapest and easiest way to become an influential man and be looked up to by the community at large was to stand behind a bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell whisky. I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher rank than any other member of society. His opinion had weight. It was his privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movement could succeed without the countenance and direction of the saloon-keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeper consented to serve in the legislature or the board of aldermen. Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the law, or the army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in a saloon. To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious."

-- Mark Twain, Roughing It

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“Professor” Jerry Thomas wrote the first bartender’s manual 1862. His book, originally published as How to Mix Drinks, is still in print and influential. It has been republished numerous times and with different covers.

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“Professor” Jerry Thomas wrote the first bartender’s manual 1862. His book, originally published as How to Mix Drinks, is still in print and influential. It has been republished numerous times and with different covers, including this one.

Anyone who has read this column more than once or twice probably understands I'm somewhat averse to fancy cocktails.

I like my drinks strong and simple as Augustine's faith. More and more often I tend to neat pours, though I often open up my bourbon or Scotch with a little ice or branch water. Occasionally, I will mix up a batch of Manhattans or martinis (I can do either gin or vodka, with no questions asked or any shaming). Every once in a while, I'll make my own variation of a sidecar. Sometimes, if I'm feeling frisky or want to test the mettle of a bar, I will order a Sazerac in a restaurant. If you want, I can make you a gin and tonic, or -- if you provide the cola -- a Cuba Libre. Though at one time or another I have made most of the International Bartenders Association's unforgettables and contemporary classics and quite a few of the new era drinks, I don't employ a lot of fancy bar tools. I have been known to muddle with a wooden spoon.

Yes, I understand we are allegedly in something like a new golden age of mixology, wherein rum is spelled "rhum" and adventurous cocktail makers apply science to the art of tending bar. I am agnostic about this trend, in part because I'm too lazy to memorize a bunch of recipes and too cheap to keep all sorts of mixers on hand. I'm a drinker, not a saloon keeper, and think that at least some of the excitement is simply due to fashion. There are a lot of people who want the social lubrication that alcohol provides without acquiring a taste for liquor.

On the other hand, I'm sure that there are plenty of drink recipes that require bacon fat-washed mescal, toasted wood chips, liquid nitrogen and/or the use of a centrifuge that I might find enticing were I to actually try them.

But I won't. I have what's tantamount to a religious objection to any drink that contains more than three ingredients and takes longer than the running time of Elvis Presley's version of "All Shook Up" (which is, according to some, the precise amount of time one should devote to shaking a Ramos Gin Fizz). I believe any drink that comes out of a machine is an abomination.

But I'm not intolerant; you heathens can drink what you want.

I'll also admit that mixology has a long and colorful history. It was here where rational inquiry into the art of mixing drinks began in earnest. And America can (and does) claim to be the birthplace of the cocktail.

...

"But if the Cocktail is American," Esquire drinks columnist David Wondrich writes in Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to Professor Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar (Perigee, $26.50), "it's American in the same way as the hot dog (that is, the Frankfurter), the hamburger (the Hamburger steak), and the ice-cream cone (with its rolled gaufrette). As a nation, we have a knack for taking under-performing elements of other peoples' cultures, streamlining them, supercharging them, and letting 'em rip -- from nobody to superstar, with a trail of sparks and a hell of a noise along the way. That's how the Cocktail did it, anyway."

Imbibe, which became the first cocktail book to win a James Beard Award when it was released in 2007, has just been issued in a revised and updated edition that includes new information about the origins of the mint julep, which Wondrich says was invented before the American Revolution, as well as more detailed information about 19th-century spirits. It has become an essential text for cocktail nerds and working bartenders, but it's probably best received as myth-busting biography and tribute to the father of modern mixology, "Professor" Thomas.

Thomas, who was born circa 1830, wrote the first bartender's manual, the immodestly titled How to Mix Drinks: Or, The Bon-vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States, Together With the Most Popular British, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish Recipes, Embracing Punches, Juleps, Cobblers, Etc., Etc., Etc., in Endless Variety. It was published in 1862 and still has currency.

He is a giant in alcohol culture, not because he invented the cocktail -- the word was in use decades before he was born -- but because he was the great popularizer and codifier. He was a showman whose signature drink, the Blue Blazer, was prepared by tossing flaming alcohol from glass to glass, making a fiery arc in the air. The self-described "Jupiter Olympus of the Bar," Thomas was one of those pure products of America that William Carlos Williams went on about -- a self-invented myth like "Buffalo Bill" Cody or Presley. He wore diamond rings and cuff links, a stickpin in his shirt. He affected kid gloves and collected art and attended bare-knuckle boxing matches.

Thomas, Wondrich says, was a part of what the author describes as "the sporting fraternity."

"In the 19th century, there were really two Americas; two kind of Americans," he writes. "There were the ones to whom the freedom upon which the country was founded meant something like, 'If I work hard and play by the rules, I will be unmolested in my enjoyment of the fruits of my labors,' and ones to whom it meant 'Nobody can tell me what to do.'"

This first group were Victorians. The second were Sports.

As America's most famous bartender, Thomas was a real Sport, an itinerant saloon keeper who also worked as a gold prospector and show-biz impresario. Wondrich eventually presided over establishments in St. Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Charleston, S.C., and New York, with probably a few other stops along the way. It was reported he worked for a while in Iowa. He toured Europe with a set of solid silver bar tools.

He died of apoplexy in 1885 after losing a great deal of money on Wall Street. Newspapers all over the country ran his obituary.

Imbibe! is a lively and intelligent book that celebrates Thomas' theatricality while chipping away at some of the bushwa (Wondrich uses the more familiar vulgar term) that surrounds so much of cocktail culture. Wondrich asserts that Thomas would have laughed at the idea that anyone "could learn how to mix drinks from a book," a sentiment that feels right to me.

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Style on 04/12/2015

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