The Funnies - Special Edition: 100th Anniversary of the Beginning of Prohibition (1922)

"Did you hear of the latest horrible effects of prohibition?"

"No, what are they?"

"Mrs. Boston Terrier's new pups were born without corkscrew tails."

Life Magazine, 1922

The Funnies - The Up-to-date Investigators (1922)

The Up-to-date Investigators

"What are you looking for, boys?"

"Someone said there was a blind pig in the cellar."

Life Magazine, 1922

The Funnies - The Wood Alcohol Tree (1920)

The Wood Alcohol Tree

The Judge Magazine, July 1920

The Funnies - Slander (1922)

"I understand you were cold sober at the Smithons' party last Saturday."

"Damn it all - that's a dirty slander."

Life Magazine, 1922

Happy Father's Day

Little Father's Day gift for the common fellow, franks and Seagram's 5 Crown from Life Magazine, June 1945. Looks like the beginning of a good day to me!

Everything New is Old Again: The Moscow Mule

Ah hipster, un-originality is thy name. The latest blast from the past to grace the drink menus of every bar and restaurant I've visited in the last three months is the Moscow Mule. Sure, it gets twisted and "reinvented' with rum or whiskey or artisan, hand-crafted tiddlywink juice from South Jub-Jub, but we all know under the frill and garnishes it's the same drink dressed up in funny clothing.

The first Moscow Mule was concocted in 1941 and served in the Cock and Bull Restaurant in LA. It's origin is most likely as described in a 2007 Wall Street Journal interview with Cock and Bull bartender Wes Price, "I just wanted to clean out the basement, I was trying to clear out dead stock..." Necessity, mother of invention and cocktails! As for the copper mugs, well signs point to John G. Martin who traveled the US promoting Smirnoff vodka and the Moscow Mule with specialty copper mugs. Since then the vessel has become the traditional container for the mule.

The ad to the left is from a May 1950 issue of Life Magazine and falls neatly into Martin's promotional tour. I'm assuming the "Gold Coast" mentioned in the ad copy references California and not Guinea Africa, but advertising never has had much to do with truth. The recipe very specially points you to Smirnoff and the Cock and Bull's house brand of Ginger Beer, though no copper mugs are specified (though Mr. Mule is holding one).

So, next time you're settling down in your retro pop-up commando food crafting hot spot and you pick up the bed pan ironically turned menu and see a handcrafted Haitian Mule...remember, you're not a special snowflake after all.

The Funnies - Momentary Quandary (1922)

A Momentary Qualm

Life Magazine, 1922

Thirsty Thursday - A Drink for Dear Old General Washington

Benjamin Franklin once said, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail". The sage was onto something, a bit of wisdom that applies equally to the boardroom and the barroom. If you really want to make a standout cocktail, the ingredients you use must be carefully considered, of the best quality, and painstakingly prepared. Today's Thirsty Thursday segment will give you a chance to prepare something your friends have probably never heard of and celebrate the birthday of one of Mr. Franklin's cohorts, General George Washington.

In September of 1784, after vanquishing the British and winning independence for the colonies, Washington and his nephew crossed the Allegheny Mountains in the process of planning and surveying the best route for a new road. In preparation Washington was said to have packed a canteen of Madeira, port, and Cherry Bounce for the trip. Preparing to succeed indeed!

Cherry Bounce is a spiced fruit cordial that requires a couple of weeks of preparation, so if you want to celebrate the first president's birthday in style get cracking! Here's the recipe (according to Epicurious):

10 - 11lbs fresh sour cherries or 1lb 9oz of preserved cherries (preferably Morello)

4C brandy

3C sugar (more if you want a sweeter cordial)

2 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces

2-3 whole cloves

1 (1/4in) piece of fresh, whole nutmeg

1. Pit  and half the cherries and put them in a large bowl. Using a potato masher to slightly crush the fruit, extracting as much juice as possible. Strain through a large, fine-mesh strainer, using a spoon to press the fruit and extract all the juice (you should end up with about 8 cups). Put the mashed cherries in the freezer or refrigerator for later use. If you're using preserved cherries, drain the fruit and set the juice aside before halving and mashing the cherries. Add any pressed juice to the reserved jarred juice. 
2. In a lidded 1-gallon glass jar, combine the juice with the brandy and sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Put the lid on the jar and put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours (stir or shake occasionally). 
3. Bring 2 cups of the cherry juice to a simmer over medium heat. Here's where you'll guage the sweetness of your cordial. Give the juice a taste and add more sugar, if desired. Drop the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and nutmeg into the pot and stir. Cover and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool to room temperature. Strain, and discard the spices. 
4. Return the spiced juice to the 1-gallon glass jar. Cover loosely with the lid, and let set in the fridge for at least 2 weeks, occasionally shaking the jar. 
5. Cherry Bounce should be served at room temperature in small cordial or wine glasses. Store the remainder in the refrigerator. 

Nice and sweet, but if you want to spike the celebration with a little irony, you can use your Cherry Bounce to make a cocktail known as a Communist:

2 parts Orange Juice

2 parts Gin

1 part Cherry Bounce

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

Combine all the above with ice in a cocktail shaker, give it a good rattling, and pour into a martini glass.

The history of this little lost gem? Hard to say, it appears in the 1933 Canapé Parade booklet Cocktail Parade. Canapé Parade published a series of recipe booklets during the early 1930's, giving the home cook ideas for everything from cheese boards to pate. The cocktail edition is a list of period drinks coupled with strange, delirium tremens inspired illustrations that make you wonder if you've somehow become inebriated just by touching the pages. It's an interesting peruse for anyone whose interested in period food and drink, definitely worth a look. 

Thanksgiving Dinner - Creme Yvette Pancakes

I'm not sure the name "French Pancake Yvette" is very fitting when the Creme Yvette is just used as a substitute for syrup, but I guess it could be a struggle to find a non-cocktail application for the violet flavored liquor. According to the maker's website, Creme Yvette's history begins in the late 19th century. As the ad indicates, it was produced by the Sheffield Company out of Connecticut. Cocktail culture has brought the art nouveau-era back from extinction and it's now produced by the Cooper Spirits Company out of France.

I'm not sure if I'll be trying the pancake recipe for Thanksgiving breakfast, but I'm definitely going to do a version of the Cream Cups French Style. More once I've given it a go.

Thirsty Thursday - Cascade Pure Whisky (1917)

In 1818 George Dickel immigrated from Germany, eventually finding himself in Nashville Tennessee where, by 1860, he opened a whiskey wholesaling company. Dickel bought barrels of whiskey from local producers, bottled it, and sold it on to the public.

The Cascade Hollow region of Tennessee had been a noted site for the production of whiskey since the 1870's and it's from this region that Cascade Pure Whisky draws its name. The "Mellow as Moonlight" tagline comes from the purported practice of cooling mash at night.

Personally, I just liked the panther image used in the ad. I've heard stories of the days when panthers roamed the Kentucky hills and probably the woodlands of southern Indiana. A different time, I guess.

Thirsty Thursday - The Poet's Dream

The internet is like the Ouroboros, feeding on itself a constant cycle of repetition where blogs pick up information from blogs and Wikipedia passes as thorough research. Take today's cocktail for example, The Poet's Dream.

If you surf the blogosphere you'll find assertions that the Poet's Dream came from either an 30's English bar guide or the 1935 Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. While that's all well and good and it may have appeared in the Astoria book, but it also appeared in Jauques Straub's 1913 Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks. 

According to a 1910 issue of the Oakland Tribune Jaques Straub was a wine steward at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. He hailed from Switzerland and never drank, he simply knew his stuff, understood the way flavors interplay, and made the most of his skills even writing the cocktail manual Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks. He worked at the Blackstone until prohibition did in the wine business.

Anyway, I guess the point is it's hard to know exactly where these cocktails come from. You hit on a recipe book, think you've got the source, and then a month later you find a book containing the same recipe that's a decade older. In the end, do you research, identify three agreeing sources, and you're good.

Thirsty Thursday - The Coronation

On August 9, 1902 the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as king and queen of the United Kingdom finally took place. Edward was 59 and never had been the model of health and vitality. He smoked upwards of twenty cigarettes and a dozen cigars a day and indulged in overeating, so it probably isn't surprising that he fell ill just before his coronation. Three days before he was to be crowned, surgery was performed on a table in the music room at Buckingham Palace. The festivities which had been scheduled for June, were moved back to August. As a result prospective guests filed who lost money on hotel rooms filed a raft of “coronation suits” and most of the foreign dignitaries who’d come to London for the ceremony returned home and missed the crowning. In the end the 59 year old monarch would be crowned by an archbishop who’d be dead in less than a year and he would join the him in eight more. Still the crowning of a new monarch, no matter how short lived, was cause for celebration and commemoration and in the case of Edward, a namesake cocktail.

Joseph Rose, creator of the Coronation from Mixer and Server No. XII, January 15, 1903

Joseph Rose was a Newark bartender, a young man working the counter at Murray's Buffet Cafe  a forgotten but once popular watering hole for local businessmen. Possibly inspired by the ascension of old King Edward he introduced a new libation: the Coronation. And exactly how did young Rose make his Coronation? Well, it's tough to say, or at least there aren't any period cocktail books laying out the recipe. The best I could come up with was a 1913 copy of Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks, I guess that'll have to do.

The Coronation

1/3 Jigger French Vermouth

1/3 Jigger Dry Gin

1/3 Jigger Dubonnet

Mix and serve.

Thirsty Thursday - Once in a Blue Moon

Somewhere in the nearly 1000 posts I've written for this blog I've touched on the subject of the blue moon. A blue moon is defined as the second full moon within a single calendar month, and the next blue moon will be coming on July 31, 2015. So, to welcome our dear cerulean sphere, I'm recommending a taste of moon juice - a blue moon cocktail.

According to Imbibe Magazine, the blue moon was the house cocktail of a New York establishment called Joel's Green Room. Joel's was a bohemian hangout, pimped by its owner, Joel Rinaldo, as being to New York what Maxim's was to Paris. According to Joel its cabaret floor show featured 20 singers and the restaurant seated "1000 diners including 500 show folks always at Joel's after the show." If you were into more cerebral pursuits, any of the waiters would happily sell customers a copy of a book penned by Joel himself on what he called the "polygeneric theory of life", basically disavowing the legitimacy of the theory of evolution. Yes, in short, Joel was a huckster.

What can be said for certain is that Joel's Green Room did pull in actors and actresses from the New York theater scene. Most of them probably starred in supporting roles or featured in the chorus, but there were exceptions to the rule. O. Henry and Emma Goldman wound up at Joel's and there's even a story of Enrico Caruso singing O Sole Mio to a Charlie Chaplin violin accompaniment, though like Joel's theories on the origin of man, nothing can be proved.

The Blue Moon supposedly was described by N.Y. columnist O. O. McIntyre as "high powered in action", whatever that means. It was a Prussian blue persuader, the lubricant for Bohemia in New York, and its true recipe is lost to time because Rinaldo never wrote it down. There are multiple versions printed in various publications, all with their own interpretation, but none truly is the original. So, I present two versions, first the Imbibe translation which is boozier and then the Cocktail Parade version printed in 1933.

Imbibe's Blue Moon

2 oz. dry gin

1/2 oz. Crème Yvette or crème de violette

1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice

Add the above to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, and serve with a twist of lemon in a martini glass.

Cocktail Prade's Blue Moon (or Contented Cow)

1/3 Gin

1/3 Whole Milk

1/3 Grenadine or Heavy Raspberry or Strawberry Syrup

Add the above to an ice-filled cocktail shaker, shake, and serve in a martini glass.

My personal opinion is the Imbibe version probably is more accurate, in spite of being reconstructed much later. I know that milk played a role in many drinks of the 20's and 30's, but grenadine, raspberry, or strawberry syrup would produce a pink drink, not the purple-blue described by period drinkers. Either way, here's purple in your eye old moon.

Thirsty Thursday - The Daiquiri

A summertime staple, drink of beach bars around the world, and quencher of the sun's fiery power, the Daiquiri is a drink with a long and complicated history that belies its fluffy rep. It all starts on a certain island just 90 miles from the southernmost point in these United States, the tropical island of Cuba. The Spanish long used Cuba as their foothold in the Americas. Christopher Columbus claimed it for the Spanish crown and Spain fought to keep their foothold, doing battle with the French and the British to retain control. Cuba repaid its monarchs with the financial rewards reaped from tobacco and sugar.

Fast forward to 1823 and the Monroe Doctrine and its edict that European powers should keep their hands off the Americas. Having survived the trials and tribulations of its conflicts with France and Britain, Spain still was the ruling power in Cuba, a fact that wasn't so popular with Cubans. During the Spanish-American War, America landed troops in Cuba, coming ashore on a beach named Daiquiri. The end result, American occupation of Cuba and Cuban tobacco and sugar filling American coffers for a change.

In the wake of the war, Jennings Cox moved in to profit from an iron mine not far from Santiago and Daiquiri beach and its Mr. Cox who is credited with creating the original Daiquiri. Supposedly, Jennings was entertaining one night and ran out of gin. Not wanting to let the festivities die, Cox resorted to the most readily available liquor on the island, rum. He added lemons, sugar, and mineral water and to his pleasure, his guests loved the result. Pressed for a name he initially called it a rum sour, but eventually he switched to the fancier moniker, the Daiquiri. Through the Bacardi website you can even view Mr. Cox's original recipe.

Allegedly Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a US Navy officer, fell in love with the Daiquiri and introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC as well as the University Club of Baltimore (the Admiral apparently got around). By the 30's the Daiquiri began to come into its own courtesy of two famous American writers.

F. Scott Fitzgerald gave the Daiquiri a cameo in This Side of Paradise, but Ernest Hemingway was more associated with the cocktail. Hemingway loved the Daiquiri so much that even diabetes wouldn't stay his appetite. Instead he swapped grapefruit for the sugar, added maraschino liqueur, and doubled up the rum, creating the Papa Doble served at El Floridita. He penned on the wall of La Bodeguita "My mojito in La Bodeguita. My Daiquiri in El Floridita."

The Papa Doble (Hemmingway Daiquiri)

3oz White rum

1oz Lime juice

.5 oz Grapefruit juice

.25 oz Maraschino liqueur

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker and gently shake with ice.. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Ah, but time waits for no man and it has a habit of playing holy hell with his drink of choice. In the 1930's two things changed the Daiquiri forever: the refrigerator and the blender. Back at Hemingway's favorite Daiquiri haunt a bartender by the name of Constantino Ribalaigua Vert was transforming the drink from shaken cocktail to slushy with a kick. With a good blender a barkeep could puree any fruit he wanted and add it to the mix and soon there were banana, mango, and strawberry Daiquiris made to order with the slush-like consistency of something you might find at your local 7-11. Soon vodka replaced gin and America moved into its Tiki mid-life crisis making the Daiquiri the drink of choice for sloshed co-eds at every spring break beach party. By the end of the 80's the Daiquiri was just another washed up has been on cocktail Skid Row.

But, as this blog shows again and again, nothing old stays that way for long and the past never really leaves us forever. The resurgence of drinking culture in the 90's brought back an interest in making cocktails the way granddad did. Out went the corn syrup mixes, fresh fruit juices and in-house infused liquors came into vogue, and soon the drink that blew in from the Spanish American war had been returned to its glory.

Regardless of what you think of the United States' re-imagining its relationship with that island 90 miles offshore, summer's a great time to rediscover the Daiquiri. Leave the bickering and phony politics to the politicians, let us have lime and rum and happy memories.

Thirsty Thursday - Absinthe

Few cocktails carry the mystique and infamy of the green, wormwood and star anise flavored curative-come-beverage of intellectuals invented by French doctor, Pierre Ordinaire, absinthe. Dr. Ordinaire brewed his first batch of absinthe in the small Swiss town of Couvet where he'd taken refuge from the upheaval (and beheadings) of the French Revolution. Absinthe was a sort of snake oil cure-all, distilled from a combination of local herbs, star anise, fennel, and Artemisia absinthium (wormwood), and the good doctor claimed it would alleviate just about any ill the imbiber could think up. From flatulence to rheumatism, dropsy to infertility, a dose of Dr. Ordinaire's green tincture would set you right. When Ordinare died, his recipe passed to the Henriod sisters who continued to sell the emerald-green potion as a patent medicine until 1797 when one Major Dubled entered the picture. The Major purchased the rights to Dr. Ordinaire's recipe and, with the help of his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Penrod, opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Pére ed Fils. It would be Penrod who would bring absinthe to the world when he open a second distillery in Pontarlier, France and brought what would become the drink of artists, writers, and intellectuals to the nation from which it would conquer the world.

In the beginning, absinthe retained its medicinal reputation. In the 1840's French troops carried absinthe along as a treatment for malaria. They returned having acquired a taste for the liquor just at a time where mass production and distribution made absinthe affordable to just about everyone. Absinthe became so popular that, by the end of the 19th century shortages made it a fashionable item and mark of class. Five o'clock became l'heure verte (the green hour) in French cafes and by 1910 absinthe had become the drink of choice in France. The Green Lady spread her wings and influence the globe. She became a popular and welcome guest in Spain, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, and the Old Absinthe House in New Orleans could never have served a sazerac without absinth. is one of the city's most prominent landmarks, but its growing popularity would soon lead to its demise.

With the demand for absinthe at an all-time high, disreputable manufacturers saw an opportunity to strike it rich. They began substituting grain alcohol for cheaper grape alcohol making their product more popular and increasing consumption. Due to the glut of cheap absinthe and two types of blight attacking vineyards and running up the price of wine, absinthe eventually became more popular with the French working class than wine. By the turn of the century France's vines were on the mend and vintners were sick of taking a beating at the hands of the Green Fairy. They were up for revenge and their first strike was to start a smear campaign against absinthe which they decried as an unnatural and inferior product. Ignoring rampant alcoholism as a potential cause, they pointed to absinthe as the root cause for the chronic drunkenness, destitution, and hopelessness that ruled over the lower classes and by the 1860's the term "absinthism" emerged.

Anti-Absinthe Propaganda in the San Francisco Call

The disease described by Dr. Falentin Magnan of the St. Anne Asylum in Paris sounded horrible enough:

" In absinthism, the hallucinating delirium is most active, most terrifying, sometimes provoking reactions of an extremely violent and dangerous nature… the absinthist cries out, pales, loses consciousness and falls; the features contract, the jaws clench, the pupils dilate, the eyes roll up, the limbs stiffen, a jet of urine escapes, gas and waste material are brusquely expulsed."

Oddly the symptoms the doctor described generally apply to alcoholism in general, a fact dismissed out of hand by Magnan because it didn't support his personal crusade. Soon abolitionists and the press joined in the fray and before long absinthe was accused of causing madness, criminality, tuberculosis, and epilepsy. The final blow would come from a sensationalized murder committed by an alcoholic laborer named Jean Lanfray who slew his pregnant wife and children after a binge that happened to include two ounces of absinthe.

“Lanfray consumed seven glasses of wine, six glasses of cognac, one coffee laced with brandy, two crème de menthes, and two glasses of absinthe after eating a sandwich. He returned home drunk with his father, and drank another coffee with brandy. He then got into an argument with his wife, and asked his wife to polish his shoes for him. When she refused, Lanfray retrieved a rifle and shot her once in the head, killing her instantly, causing his father to flee. His four-year-old daughter, Rose, heard the noise and ran into the room, where Lanfray shot and killed her and his two-year-old daughter, Blanche. He then shot himself in the jaw and carried Blanche’s body to the garden, where he collapsed.”

In 1906 absinthe became illegal in Brazil and Belgium, in 1908 in Holland, in 1910 in Switzerland, in the US in 1912, and finally in France in 1915. The Green Fairy wasn't dead, though. In 1990's she began a resurgence, returning to the UK and by 2004 she'd returned to Amsterdam and in 2012 the French brand Lucid officially was legal for import into the US. Now, with the long and sordid history of absinthe out of the way, let's get down to tacks (brass or otherwise) and talk about how to drink the stuff.

If you go into a modern bar that serves absinthe, it would (basically) be served in the American style. That is a pony of absinthe, a carafe of water, and a cube of sugar. The absinthe will be served in a tumbler or reservoir glass. A special, slotted spoon will be balanced on top of the glass, on which there will be a cube of sugar. The carafe of ice water is poured over the sugar cube, sweetening the absinthe, diluting it to the strength desired by the drinker, and producing the classic louche (milkiness and opalescence). Here are the instructions as described in Harry Johnson's 1888 New and Improved illustrated Bartender's Manual.

Thirsty Thursday - The Manhattan

Being the perennial Johnny-Come-Lately that I am, and resistant to anything that has the stink of a trend, I've kept away from Facebookery's "Throwback Thursday" with the sort of gusto politicians of the party in power resist electoral reform. I always say, if the masses love it, it's got to be a trick. Still, writing, especially blogging, loves a good meme and I do spend most of my time writing about the past. So my inner iconoclast and joiner got together and hammered out a deal. Today is Throwback Thursday, and the three of us have decided the thing most of us like to throw back is a good, stiff, drink. Yes, Thirsty Thursday, and I'm going to kick the whole thing off with a drink that's experiencing a bit of a resurgence, one that's been creeping around the cocktail lounge and bar long enough to have suffered all the slings and arrows fickle culture has to offer: the Manhattan.

Like many of the cocktails we'll be sampling, the true lineage of the Manhattan is uncertain. We know it emerged from the New York burrough for which it's named and that it was filling sherry glasses in trendier establishments there by the mid 1880s. The official history of the Manhattan Club lays claim the Manhattan's invention, going so far as attributing it to one Dr. Iain Marshall who supposedly concocted it for an 1874 reception thrown by Lady Randolph Churchill for presidential candidate Samuel Tilden. It's a nice story, but like most nice creation stories it probably isn't true. 

For one thing, Lady Churchill was in England giving birth to her daughter at the time of the Tilden reception. Also, there are competing creation stories that place the Manhattan's birth ten years earlier in a Broadway bar that's name has been lost to history. In the end, all we can say for certain is the Manhattan is an aptly named child of NYC's guided age.

Order a Manhattan at your corner bar today and you're likely to get a mix of rye or Canadian whisky, sweet red vermouth, and orange or Angostura bitters with a maraschino cherry for looks. Though the recipe hasn't changed much over the centuries, it has evolved. In the early 1900's your cocktail would have contained American whiskey and been sweetened with a dash of gum syrup or maybe Curacao with a lemon peel added for garnish. The change from American to Canadian whiskey is probably linked to prohibition. Bootleg whiskey came across the border from Canada to fill the gap left by American distillers and the change stuck once America's dry heaves subsided. Back in the late 1800's absinthe might be substituted for the Curacao in a pinch, an ingredient that would put a serious side-spin on the cherry and orange theme modern imbibers have come to expect from their Manhattan.

How big is the Manhattan in American culture? Aside from introducing vermouth to the cocktail shaker, it also claimed the title of the 1928 film Manhattan Cocktail. No, it's not surprising you don't know that one. It was a movie that had the misfortune of being released in the period when the silent film was era was coming to an end and the talkies just getting started. It starred a couple un-notables, Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen, Haven't heard of either of them? That's a shame, Arlen appeared in over 140 films seeing not only the coming of sound, but the coming of color to the movies as well. His first appearance was in 1921 and his last in 1977.  Nancy Carroll appeared in over thirty feature films and went on to a stint in television that lasted until 1963. If you're looking for an appearance by the Manhattan that did better at the box office you need go no farther than the 1959 Marilyn Monroe comedy Some Like it Hot where Sugar and her co-stars were portrayed shaking cocktails in a hot water bottle due to prohibition. In the 2000's the popularity of Mad Men helped return swank and cocktail culture to the fore of the American conscience. Now the Manhattan has become a drink du jour at just about every watering hole from the swank to the simple and some hipster is probably substituting small-batch artisan hand crafted pomegranate bitters for Angostura. Whatever may come, the Manhattan survives, it always has and probably always will.

Flag Day in Ward 8

I was surprised to find an ad with a calendar that matches with 2014, but here it is, June 1947. And what drink makes you think Flag Day more than a Ward 8?

The name may make you think of lodgings at an asylum, but the name actually has a political origin. The story goes that the drink is an homage to Democrat Martin M. Lomasney's 1898 victory in a Massachusetts statehouse race. When the election was delivered by voters in the city's 8th ward, the drink had its name.

Mint Julep Time

Hope you're having a great Derby day and to help, here's a little recipe for the drink of the run for the roses - the mint julep. Now, I'll qualify this entry by saying I'm not a julep fan so I can't attest to whether this clipping makes a drink worth watering the horses with.

What I can say is that it comes from the July 1942 issue of Boating Magazine and (as you can see) is attributed to Holland-America ship line. Doesn't sound too southern to me.

Like many alcoholic beverages, it's virtually impossible to track down the origin of the mint julep. What can say is that it probably started as a medicinal treatment and cases can be sited where it was prescribed as a treatment for nausea and vomiting. Londoner John Davis described the mint julep in print in an 1803 publication as "a dram of spirituous liquor that has mint steeped in it, taken by Virginians in the morning..."

A St. Patrick's Day Reminder

A while back I received a summons for jury duty and wound up serving for a case that related to a traffic accident that occurred on St. Patrick's Day when a pair of (former) friends had one too many and wound up in a traffic accident. Now, there's nothing particularly "St. Patrick's Day" about drinking, especially drinking too much, but I thought it'd be a good time to delve into the TGFI film vault for a little information about the intoxicating effects of alcohol and to offer a word of caution.

National Irish Coffee Day

If you went by the crowd-sourced genius volume of all-things-true known as Wikipedia, you'd believe that the first Irish coffee was "...conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked from Pan Am flying boat on a miserable winter evening in the 1940's." I'll admit that Wiki's answer is pretty, it has a lovely feel and I'd love to believe that some wry, Irish character tailored the first Irish coffee out of kindness and inspiration, but for me the doesn't pass the smell test.

The problem I have is that it's easy to find similar drinks made with other alcohols which are much older than the proposed birthday of the Irish coffee. For an example, in 1888 a bar tending book called the New and Improved Illustrated Bartender's Manual printed the following recipe:

At it's root, Soldier's Camping Punch represents the theme of all coffee drinks. It features strong, sweet coffee mixed with high-proof liquor. In the case of the punch the two liquors involved are rum and brandy, but it it's hardly a stretch to imagine a barkeep or host substituting whatever high-proof liquor of modest vintage was at hand. Sure, the fabled Joe Sheridan may have been the first to record the recipe, but the inspiration surely came from one of a slew of existing bar tender's favorites.

Regardless, Happy Irish Coffee Day. Pour yourself a strong one, drink to good ole' Joe, and watch the snowflakes fly. It's good to be warm inside and out.