1935 Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book

CONSTITUTIVE AND DERIVATIVE II imported cocktail shakers and increased the manufacture of ice. Not a few Frenchmen had learned about cocktails in America. The Chatham bar and Henry's and a dozen or more other places knew just how Martinis and Old– Fashioneds were made, and served them. That was one reason why many an American found Paris more enjoy– able than London, and stayed longer. Of course, in Lon– don hotel bars frequented by Americans, cocktails, so– called, were served long ago by English barmaids and drunk liberally. American visitors, though they refused to acquire the tea habit ·and balked at Scotch, simply had to drink something in that climate. But somehow the con– coctions lacked";iuthenticity; they did not taste like real cocktails. English bartenders and barmaids, it appeared, found as much difficulty composing cocktails harmoniously as did their musicians in learning to play music of Amer– ican origin and tempo. At this distance and with the con– quest of London by our "jazz kings" a part of ancient history, the comparison must seem inept. But I knew the London of twenty-five to thirty years ago; I lived there. Not until the summer of 1920, so far as I was able to ascertain, did an American-trained barman make his ap– pearance at one of the high-class London hotels. That was the year when most' American bartenders found themselves out of jobs. This one, however, was a Britisher. I knew the Englishman who had been commissioned by the man– agement of that hotel to iind such an expert in New York and happened to be in the lobby when the result of the mission was announced. I sampled one of the newcomer's first cocktails made on British soil. Out in the Far East, the American Navy, true to tradi– tion, did its share in spreading the gospel of the cocktail.