1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Glossary

' BAR GLASSES-In seeking to obtain accurate definitions for the various containers in which were set forth the com– positions of professors in that Academy of Fine Art with which we are dealing, one has discovered almost as many disagreements among its surviving experts as are said to exist among doctors. The memories of men who were among our best mixers-in the days when "good•mixer" had an– other besides its present application-exhibit almost start– ling variations. Even when one stood a barman long retired to private life, before an imposing array of glassware at Lewis& Conger's, he looked at them long and then shook his head. "What they drink from these days is not what used to be," he said, sadly. So what follows as "definitions" is at best only an approach to a consensus of recollection. As a matter of fact, in first-class bars the shapes and sizes of glasses varied. The old Waldorf barmen exhibited a preference for thick glasses, the thin ones, except where cer– tain drinks seemed to demand them, being kept for display. They were costly, and very easy to break. Among the glasses mentioned as proper for the service of the fancy potations before listed, the name "star" ap– pears frequently. According to surviving authorities on bar– containers of the period, among them the Dean of a once– famous chapter of the American School of Drinking, famed as "The Hole in the Wall," whose secret location in the rear of Charles & Company's fruit store was known only to the [ 241]