used to crush lumps of sugar and mix them into the drink. Since ice—in whose presence sugar dissolves poorly—was rare in drinks and boiling water common, this was entirely adequate, and its characteristic raps and taps against the side of the glass aroused much the same Pavlovian response in the topers of the day that the rattle of ice in the shaker does now.
Beyond that he might need a “loggerhead” or “flip-dog” for hot drinks (this was nothing more than an iron poker that would be heated and plunged into drinks, making them hiss and steam) and perhaps an Egg Nog stirrer, made by passing a splint of wood sideways through the end of a stick, which would then be twirled between the palms, thus whipping up the eggs. Some basic glassware—large tumblers, small tumblers, stemmed wineglasses and mugs for hot drinks—and a cruet for bitters, with a goose-quill forced through the
No. D 82. Patent Combination Shaker. Price......90c
Combination Shaker. (Author’s collection)
cork as a dasher-spout (this actually worked quite well, but before long it was replaced by the purpose-made metal-and-cork “dasher top”), and the bar was equipped, at least in terms of dry goods.
The wet goods were equally simple and robust. While Madeiras and sherries excited the merchant class and the swells drank champagne as always, for everyone else rum loomed large, particularly in the earlier part of the period. The good stuff came up from Jamaica and St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, the less good from Boston and Providence and the towns thereabouts. In fact, when, a bit later in the century, Maine-born dialect humorist Artemus Ward opined that New England rum was “wuss nor the korn whisky of Injianny, which eats threw stone jugs & will turn the stummuck of the most shiftless Hog,” he was reflecting the consensus of public opinion. (The great exception here was Daniel Lawrence & Sons’ Old Medford rum, a byword for quality from 1824 to 1905, when the company fell into the hands of a Lawrence who happened to be a Methodist bishop and promptly closed it.) But speaking of whiskey, barkeepers mixed drinks with that, too, although not necessarily the ones fortunate enough to work in the established cities of the East. There, the epicures preferred imported French brandy or Dutch gin—“Hollands,” as it was known—or the aged domestic brandy distilled from peaches and their pits. In the backcountry, it was whiskey (and generally unaged whiskey at that) all the way down, interrupted only by the occasional tot of applejack or other rough fruit distillate.
But that’s the way things went in the backcountry. In the city, loaf sugar—a relatively refined off-white affair that came in hard, conical loaves (barkeepers had to cut pieces off with snips)—prevailed among the discriminate, such as the two black chimney sweeps satirized (gently, for once) in 1825 in the pages of the New York Literary Gazette for having palates so delicate that they would always insist on “white sugar” in their Slings. The indiscriminate or underfunded used a darker, more raw form of sugar (also produced in loaves), or molasses, or whatever the country provided in the way of maple sugar or honey or what-have-you. In the city, lemons and limes were common; in the country, they were scarce. On the other hand, country topers could count on fresh milk and eggs and clean water whereas their city brethren found all of those problematic.
The 1810s and ’20s saw considerable development in the barkeeper’s art, as pioneers such as Willard of the City Hotel and Cato Alexander made their influence felt and new drinks—the individual Punch, the iced Mint Julep, the Cocktail—achieved near-universal popularity. Things were happening in the boonies as well, particularly as rum began its long decline from its perch as America’s spirit of choice and Pennsylvania’s old Monongahela rye and old Bourbon from Kentucky began to come into their own.
THE
Beyond that he might need a “loggerhead” or “flip-dog” for hot drinks (this was nothing more than an iron poker that would be heated and plunged into drinks, making them hiss and steam) and perhaps an Egg Nog stirrer, made by passing a splint of wood sideways through the end of a stick, which would then be twirled between the palms, thus whipping up the eggs. Some basic glassware—large tumblers, small tumblers, stemmed wineglasses and mugs for hot drinks—and a cruet for bitters, with a goose-quill forced through the
No. D 82. Patent Combination Shaker. Price......90c
Combination Shaker. (Author’s collection)
cork as a dasher-spout (this actually worked quite well, but before long it was replaced by the purpose-made metal-and-cork “dasher top”), and the bar was equipped, at least in terms of dry goods.
The wet goods were equally simple and robust. While Madeiras and sherries excited the merchant class and the swells drank champagne as always, for everyone else rum loomed large, particularly in the earlier part of the period. The good stuff came up from Jamaica and St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, the less good from Boston and Providence and the towns thereabouts. In fact, when, a bit later in the century, Maine-born dialect humorist Artemus Ward opined that New England rum was “wuss nor the korn whisky of Injianny, which eats threw stone jugs & will turn the stummuck of the most shiftless Hog,” he was reflecting the consensus of public opinion. (The great exception here was Daniel Lawrence & Sons’ Old Medford rum, a byword for quality from 1824 to 1905, when the company fell into the hands of a Lawrence who happened to be a Methodist bishop and promptly closed it.) But speaking of whiskey, barkeepers mixed drinks with that, too, although not necessarily the ones fortunate enough to work in the established cities of the East. There, the epicures preferred imported French brandy or Dutch gin—“Hollands,” as it was known—or the aged domestic brandy distilled from peaches and their pits. In the backcountry, it was whiskey (and generally unaged whiskey at that) all the way down, interrupted only by the occasional tot of applejack or other rough fruit distillate.
But that’s the way things went in the backcountry. In the city, loaf sugar—a relatively refined off-white affair that came in hard, conical loaves (barkeepers had to cut pieces off with snips)—prevailed among the discriminate, such as the two black chimney sweeps satirized (gently, for once) in 1825 in the pages of the New York Literary Gazette for having palates so delicate that they would always insist on “white sugar” in their Slings. The indiscriminate or underfunded used a darker, more raw form of sugar (also produced in loaves), or molasses, or whatever the country provided in the way of maple sugar or honey or what-have-you. In the city, lemons and limes were common; in the country, they were scarce. On the other hand, country topers could count on fresh milk and eggs and clean water whereas their city brethren found all of those problematic.
The 1810s and ’20s saw considerable development in the barkeeper’s art, as pioneers such as Willard of the City Hotel and Cato Alexander made their influence felt and new drinks—the individual Punch, the iced Mint Julep, the Cocktail—achieved near-universal popularity. Things were happening in the boonies as well, particularly as rum began its long decline from its perch as America’s spirit of choice and Pennsylvania’s old Monongahela rye and old Bourbon from Kentucky began to come into their own.
THE
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