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

THE BON VIVANT'S COMPANION

merchant, the lawyer, or the Methodist deacon takes his cocktail. Suppose it is not properly compounded? The whole day's proceedings go crooked because the man himself feels wrong from the effects of an unskillfully mixed drink." After much research Professor Thomas concluded that the lowly estate of the cocktail was in part due to the faulty bitters employed in its composition. He therefore busied himself in laboratory work, and in due time appeared with Jerry Thomas's Own Bitters. This brilliant discovery was madesoon after Professor Thomashad opened the first of his New York barrooms,and during the next few years cocktail drinking increased until the beverage had become the favor ite morning tipple of all men of convivial habit, and few self-respecting New York business men would attempt to begin a day's work without one. However, very few of the m3T:iad of present day cocktails were known. The first edi tion of The Bon Vivant's Companion lists but ten different varieties —the bottle, the brandy, the fancy brandy, the whiskey, the champagne, the gin, the fancy gin, the Japa nese, the soda and the Jersey. They were all very simple mixtures, but potent, except the soda and the Jersey. Professor Thomas's ballyhoo for the cocktail was carried on with great vigor for almost a score of years, and the last edition of his masterpiece contains formulae for no fewer than twenty-four different mixtures, including such well known concoctions as the Manhattan,the absinthe, and the Martini, which was originally called the Martinez. He also gives directions for preparing the Saratoga and Coffco cock-, tails, and the Morning Glory, perhaps the most powerful of all. They were very popular for many years. In his work Professor Thomas also describes five very interesting drinks called the Bishop, the Protestant Bishop, the Archbishop, the Cardinal and the Pope, which are precisely similar ex cept for the wines employed in their preparation. Instruc tions for compounding these beverages appeared in the first xxxvi