1925 Drinks Long & Short by Nina Toye and A H Adair

PRACTICAL HINTS

It may be possible to make bricks without straw —that is a question for brickmakers to decide. Certainly it is not possible to make cocktails without ice. Innocent of ice, the drink may be an aperitifor anything else you choose to call it, but a cocktail it is not. Ice, then, is the chief requisite, and unless otherwise specified in the recipe it should be chipped or cracked into small pieces, not shaved. Shaved ice meltstoo quickly with an unpleasantly diluting effect on the cock tail. First catch your ice then,and the remainder of the process is fairly simple. Although it is more convenientto use a proper shaker, the lack of one need deter no ardent spirit. A wide-mouthed glass bottle with a tightly fitting screw top, such as is used for bottling fruit, supplemented by a strainer, will serve the purpose in an emergency. Even an ordinary jug with a swizzle stick to stir the mixture will answer quite well. By-the-bye, a swizzle stick should be included in the drink mixer's outfit, since it is called for in certain recipes, and no other utensil will take its place. 7