Ted Haigh - Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them

VINTAGE SPIRITS
AND FORGOTTEN
COCKTAILS

BEVERLY MASSACHUSETTS

DELUXE EDITION
Revised and Expanded

FROM THE ALAMAGOOZLUM TO THE ZOMBIE AND BEYOND

100 REDISCOVERED RECIPES
AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM

Ted Haigh A K A Dr.Cocktail

Dedicated to David Donovan, without him, there wouldnt have been a book, to Rick Corsini, lab partner in all things Cocktail, and to Nurse Cocktail, partner in all else.

Since I started this journey into the overgrown thicket of cocktail research, Ive had many a helping hand. Those listed here have done extraordinary service, to my little book and me. Thank you.

Jeff Berry, Gae Buckley, Fernando Castellon, Dale DeGroff, Martin Doudoroff, Carl Ferraro, Colin Field, Roy Finamore, Bill Grimes, Mary Ann Hall, Robert Hess, John Hodgman, Sven Kirsten, Robert McCarthy, Ross McDonald, Tony Ramos, Brian Rea, Gary and Mardee Regan, Steve Remsberg, Chuck Taggart, Mary Linn Wolf, Dave Wondrich, the whole gang from the AOL and Drinkboy drink boards, and David Hill and Lynn Kneedler, two personal boosters and beloved former teachers.

Articles about the Amarosa Cocktail, Boulevardier, Fish House Punch, Hanky Panky, Lions Tail, Mamie Taylor, and Saint Croix Rum Fix originally appeared in Imbibe Magazine in altered form. Thanks to Bob McCarthy for the photograph accompanying the Saint Croix Rum Fix. The digital illustration accompanying the Crimean Cup la Marmora is based on an image licensed from Getty Images. Thanks to Mark Hooper for the Model T radiator image, which illustrates the Ford Cocktail. Thanks to the Savoy, a Fairmont hotel, for the photographs accompanying the Hanky Panky Cocktail. Thanks to www.tikit.net for the Casino Royale paperback book image that illustrates the Vesper. The photograph of UNIVAC illustrating the Online Pioneers sidebar is property of Unisys Corporation.

PREFACE
to the Revised Edition

INTRODUCTION
Greetings, Cocktail Archaeologists!

COCKTAIL ARCHAEOLOGY
A Trip Down Mixology Lane

When I penned the first edition of Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails half a decade ago, we were on the cusp of something ... something that I encouraged, but still could not fully intuit. To jump back a bit, I initially focused on the cocktail recipes in vintage books, in the late 1980s. Then it was like listening to a crackling 78 rpm recorddim voices from another time. To say classically styled cocktails were a rarity then was (and is) an understatement. Bar stemware typically consisted of three variations of wineglasses, and martinis were usually vodka, served on the rocks with no hint of vermouth. As the 1990s dawned, a veritable worship of cocktail culture emerged. Every drink served in a stemmed cocktail glass became a martini. The Rat Pack, swanky lounge music, and the decor of the late 1950s defined the drink in your hand, and the liquor companies defined what was in the drink. I saw New York City moving beyond this theater with a few miragelike hideaways where my dreams of cocktail paradise were reflected in drinks that werent simulated, artificially colored, or preserved. In a word, they were real. I noted, with certain glad wonderment, the same thing happening in Seattle.

Yet, in Los Angeles, getting anything other than a sweet non-Martini-martini of one sort or another remained elusive. Oh, there was the rare venue, like Duplex, or Cinnabar, or Watergrill, that did everything right, and had a great vintage cocktail list, but some of these enthusiastic pioneers could not retain the imaginations of their bartenders after the first blush of interest. Some places simply closed, and others relinquished their cocktail aspirations, moving back into more familiar territory. It just seemed like the timing wasnt right. The interests I had and had seen reflected in the many devotees with whom I corresponded across the country had not achieved the critical mass required to explode on the scene in a way the broader public recognized or embraced.

Some of us quietly wondered whether the cocktail resurgence was a passing fancy already at its zenith. My book, the first edition of this book, was born, optimistically, exactly then. In it, I spoke with an utter sincerity that I still have now. I said my piece, railing at immature tastes and fixed ideas ... vermouth is bad, liquor should be disguised, good equals sweet, and a good deal meant large, larger, largest. I argued for the past as a foundation for the future. I was firmly committed to what that book would be and very clear about the stance it would take. My beloved editor, Mary Ann Hall (then and now), advocated for my vision and my voice. I had to say a number of things that simply needed to be said. Oh yes, I was passionate.

Yet when journalists or cocktail royalty visited LA, I blanched. Sorry, if you want a decent cocktail here, youd better be willing to drink during the day because the best bartenders are in their seventies or eighties and dont like to drive at night because of macular degeneration. The great Tiki bartender Tony Ramos mixed Mojitos and alcoholic bebidas one or two day shifts a week at Ciudad. That restaurant, with its wonderfully creative chef/ owners, never grasped exactly what (and who) they had behind the bar. They never stopped to consider that pressing this historic statesman of the bar into the mold of what they wanted their restaurant to be like could do a disservice to both Ramos and the drink magic he mightve continued to do unfettered. Had they recognized the bar as half of the creativity and pleasure of their menu, Ciudad mightve presented some of the finest mixed drinks in Southern Californiaand beyond.

Jason McDonald of Cinnabar embraced the classic cocktail, but when he moved to New York, no one with such facility replaced him. Eventually they closed. When it came to bartending, it wasnt always an owners lack of respect for the craft; without a continuuma professional/creative support systemsadly it was often a lack of self-respect. LA still had some great old places ... Musso & Franks, the Tiki Ti, the Polo Lounge, the great Fernando at Les Freres Taix, but they made only the classic standards, if expertly, and unless you were willing or able to guide them through the lost wonders of drink history with an antique bar guide and a bottle of orange bitters, even there you were out of luck. My house was the best drink in town.

Little did I realize before this book came out in 2004 that the cocktail scene was not at its zenith; it was simply at a crest ... like the top of a roller coaster just before all hell breaks loose. And