1929 The Bon Vivant's Companion or How to Mix Drinks by Jerry Thomas

INTRODUCTION

Orleans. There he dipped into his money bags and opened a barroom which the preface to his literary work describes as a very recherche establishment. But he soon became dis couraged,for his heart wasin the preparation of cold weather beverages, and there was scant demand in Louisiana for the Blue Blazer and the Tom and Jerry. He soon sold his New Orleans property and returned to New York, where he was immediately engaged as Principal Bartender of the Metropolitan Hotel, then under the management of William M.Tweed and a center of the city's night life, which in those days was quite abundant. Professor Thomas celebrated his return to the chilly North by mixing a huge punch bowl of Tom and Jerry, which was given away free to all cus tomers for a week,and by introducing several fine Southern mixtures to thejaded palates of the principal men of Gotham. Chief among them was the Crusta,a beverage of rare merit which was first compounded by Santina, owner of a cele brated Spanish Cafe in New Orleans. When Professor Thomas began his experiments with the cocktail, this splendid concoction, whose name is now daily taken in vain by thousands of wierd mixtures in thousands of American homes,was then the puling infant of the great family of beverages, and had few friends and practically no admirers. The cocktail," wrote Professor Thomas,"is a modern invention and is generally used on fishing and other sporting parties, although some patients insist that it IS good in the morning as a tonic." Indeed,at this period the cocktail was not only a morning drink, an eye-opener, but was seldom served over the bar; as Professor Thomas indi cates, it was generally bottled and sold for trips into the country and other expeditions. In the course of time it became more popular, but as late as 1885 it had not become the standard before-dinner drink that it was in later years, and as it is now throughout this great land."In the morn ing," said a paper called Under the Gaslight, in 1879,"the

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