Jerry Thomas' How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion: A Reprint of the 1862 Edition

By Jerry Thomas and William Schmidt

From master mixologist Jerry Thomas, this timeless recipe book is an essential cornerstone of mixological history.

First published in 1862, Jerry Thomas' How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion is a guide for bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts alike. Serving as the perfect accompaniment for any bar, restaurant, or dinner party, this is a treasure trove of cocktail recipes that have transcended time, delighting drinkers and mixologists for over a century.

Vintage Cookery Books proudly presents this new edition featuring an introduction to mixed drinks by William Schimdt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vintage Cookery Books
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473339248

Book preview

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.

BY JERRY THOMAS,

Formerly principal Bar-tender at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York, and the Planter’s House, St. Louis

TO WHICH IS APPENDED

A MANUAL FOR THE MANUFACTURE

OF

Cordials, Liquors, Fancy Syrups, &c., &c.,

AFTER THE MOST APPROVED METHODS NOW USED IN THE DISTILLATION OF LIQUORS AND BEVERAGES, DESIGNED FOR THE SPECIAL USE OF MANUFACTURERS AND DEALERS IN WINES AND SPIRITS, GROCERS, TAVERN-KEEPERS, AND PRIVATE FAMILIES, THE SAME BEING ADAPTED TO THE TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADAS.

Illustrated with Descriptive Engravings.

THE WHOLE CONTAINING

OVER 600 VALUABLE RECIPES.

BY CHRISTIAN SCHULTZ,

Professor of Chemistry, Apothecary, and Manufacturer of Wines, Liquors, Cordials, &c., &c., from Berne, Switzerland.

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cocktail and Beverage Making

Water, water everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink!

As Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) warns us; water is everywhere - but drinks for human consumption are an entirely different matter! A drink, or beverage, is a kind of liquid which is specifically prepared for human consumption. There are many types of drinks. They can be divided into various groups such as plain water, alcohol, non-alcoholic drinks, soft drinks (carbonated drinks), fruit or vegetable juices and hot drinks, such as hot chocolate. In addition to fulfilling a basic need, drinks form an important part of the culture of human society. Cocktail mixing and hot beverages (specifically coffee) are the only two sub genres to have really taken the publics imagination however, but today they have evolved into a highly specific and skilled craft form.

A cocktail is a beer or an alcoholic mixed drink that contains three or more ingredients—at least one of the ingredients must be a spirit, one sweet/sugary and one sour/bitter. This is the traditional definition of a cocktail, however today, the term will commonly be used for almost any mixed alcoholic drink, including mixers, mixed shots, etc. The origin of the word 'cocktail' is heavily disputed. The first recorded use of the word cocktail is found in The Morning Post and Gazetteer in London, England on March 20, 1798:

'Mr. Pitt, two petit vers of L’huile de Venus.

Ditto, one of perfeit amour.

Ditto, 'cock-tail' (vulgarly called ginger).'

The first recorded use of the word cocktail in the United States is said to be in The Farmer's Cabinet on April 28, 1803, however the Oxford English dictionary lists the word as originating in the United States. Regardless of this controversy, the first publication of a bartenders' guide, which included cocktail recipes was in 1862 — How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivants Companion, by 'Professor' Jerry Thomas. In addition to listings of recipes for Punches, Sours, Slings, Cobblers, Shrubs, Toddies, Flips, and a variety of other types of mixed drinks, were ten recipes for drinks referred to as 'Cocktails.' A key ingredient which differentiated 'cocktails' from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters as an ingredient.

During Prohibition in the United States (1919–1933), when alcoholic beverages were illegal, cocktails were still consumed illegally in establishments known as speakeasies. The quality of liquor available during Prohibition was much worse than previously, and there was a shift away from whiskey towards gin - which did not require ageing, and was therefore easier to produce illicitly. Honey, fruit juices, and other flavourings served to mask the foul taste of the inferior liquors. Sweet cocktails were also easier to drink quickly, an important consideration when the establishment might be raided at any moment. After this period, the popularity of cocktails began to wane, however they experienced a resurgence in 1980, with vodka often substituting the original gin in drinks such as the 'martini'. Traditional cocktails and gin began to make a comeback in the 2000s.

Coffee-making, compared to cocktail making has an incredibly long history. Establishments serving prepared coffee, or other hot beverages have existed for over five hundred years. Various legends involving the introduction of coffee to Istanbul at a 'Kiva Han' in the late fifteenth century circulate in culinary tradition, but with no documentation. However, Coffeehouses in Mecca soon became a concern, as they became places for political gatherings. Some Imams consequently banned them, and the drink, for Muslims between 1512 and 1524. In 1530 the first coffee house was opened in Damascus. Soon after, coffee houses became part of the Ottoman Culture, spreading rapidly to all regions of the Ottoman Empire. In the seventeenth century, coffee appeared for the first time in Europe outside the Ottoman Empire, and coffeehouses were established quickly, soon becoming immensely popular.

The modern espresso machine was born in Milan in 1945, by Achille Gaggia, and from there, spread across coffeehouses and restaurants across Italy and the rest of Europe and North America in the early 1950s. Interestingly, the term 'barista' originates from the Italian word for 'bartender', thus linking the professions of cocktail and coffee making. Usually, it refers to a coffeehouse employee, who prepares coffee drinks, but can often also serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages too. There are now competitions for baristas to showcase their coffee making skills all over the world. Many professional 'cocktail-makers' today prefer to be referred to as a 'mixologist' as opposed to a bartender, specifically differentiating someone who creates innovative as well as historical beverages. We hope that the reader is inspired by this book to create some beverages of their own! Enjoy.

PREFACE.

IN all ages of the world, and in all countries, men have indulged in social drinks. They have always possessed themselves of some popular beverage apart from water and those of the breakfast and tea table. Whether it is judicious that mankind should continue to indulge in such things, or whether it would be wiser to abstain from all enjoyments of that character, it is not our province to decide. We leave that question to the moral philosopher. We simply contend that a relish for social drinks is universal; that those drinks exist in greater variety in the United States than in any other country in the world; and that he; therefore, who proposes to impart to these drinks not only the most palatable but the most wholesome characteristics of which they may be made susceptible, is a genuine public benefactor. That is exactly our object in introducing this little volume to the public. We do not propose to persuade any man to drink, for instance, a punch, or a julep, or a cocktail, who has never happened to make the acquaintance of those refreshing articles under circumstances calculated to induce more intimate relations; but we do propose to instruct those whose intimate relations in question render them somewhat fastidious, in the daintiest fashions thereunto pertaining.

We very well remember seeing one day in London, in the rear of the Bank of England, a small drinking saloon that had been set up by a peripatetic American, at the door of which was placed a board covered with the unique titles of the American mixed drinks supposed to be prepared within that limited establishment. The Connecticut eye-openers and Alabama fog-cutters, together with the lightning-smashes and the thunderbolt-cocktails, created a profound sensation in the crowd assembled to peruse the Nectarian bill of fare, if they did not produce custom. It struck us, then, that a list of all the social drinks—the composite beverages, if we may call them so—of America, would really be one of the curiosities of jovial literature; and that if it was combined with a catalogue of the mixtures common to other nations, and made practically useful by the addition of a concise description of the various processes for brewing each, it would be a blessing to mankind. There would be no excuse for imbibing, with such a book at hand, the villainous compounds of bar-keeping Goths and Vandals, who know no more of the amenities of bon vivant existence than a Hottentot can know of the bouquet of champagne.

There’s philosophy, says Father Tom in the drama, even in a jug of punch. We claim the credit of philosophy teaching by example, then, to no ordinary extent in the composition of this volume; for our index exhibits the title of eighty-six different kinds of punches, together with a universe of cobblers, juleps, bitters, cups, slings, shrubs, &c., each and all of which the reader is carefully educated how to concoct in the choicest manner. For the perfection of this education, the name, alone, of Jerry Thomas is a sufficient guarantee. He has travelled Europe and America in search of all that is recondite in this branch of the spirit art. He has been the Jupiter Olympus of the bar at the Metropolitan Hotel in this city. He was the presiding deity at the Planter’s House, St. Louis. He has been the proprietor of one of the most récherché saloons in New Orleans as well as in New York. His very name is synonymous in the lexicon of mixed drinks, with all that is rare and original. To the Wine Press, edited by F. S. Cozzens, Esq., we are indebted for the composition of several valuable punches, and among them we may particularize the celebrated Nuremburgh, and the equally famous Philadelphia Fish House punch. The rest we owe to the inspiration of Jerry Thomas himself, and as he is as inexorable as the Medes and Persians in his principle that no excellent drink can be made out of any thing but excellent materials, we conceive that we are safe in asserting that whatever may be prepared after his instructions will be able to speak eloquently for itself. Good wine needs no bush, Shakespeare tells us and over one of Jerry’s mixtures eulogy is quite as redundant.

CONTENTS.

This Table of Contents refers to the NUMBER OF EACH RECIPE, AND NOT to the number of the pages. For the Table of Contents to the MANUAL FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CORDIALS, SYRUPS, &c., see page 235.