1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Many Sclzools in One one-half of Absinthe, shake and strain." The "shake" was a direction, and so was the "strain." But once the student had swallowed his lesson, he would find himself able to stand up and order a real drink. Now where has that pick-me-up gone? Why, not only is the Vermuth proscribed, but Absinthe has been illegal for many years; and who the dickens remembers what a "jigger" was? A word of similar sound still survives in territory contiguous to wild blackberry or huckleberry patches down South, but-I speak from personal experi– ence-it means something quite differe~t from the mod– est containers that were used in bars for the measurement of certain liquors, when prescriptions-then known as recipes-were to be carefully compo'unded. And no doctor wrote those recipes. , To revert to the difficulty of reconstructing the Bar– room in later years, a humidor had been built on the spot mostly occupied by the great bar counter, and ex– tanks who came and looked through a once popular door:.. way often could not remember which was the proper direction to cast their sighs of regret. The back entrance from the lobby-past the telephone switchboard-with its inviting facilities for gentlemen whose capacity had been stretched, had been closed, and here young women armed with pencils and typewriters were taking dictation from industrial, financial, railway and legal magnates, so classed. Across the room and against a partition were desks for various managerial heads and factotums. And when one's eye reached that partition they had embraced only half of the room where for decades thirsty disciples had learned or libationed from eight in the morning until [ I 5)