Dale DeGroff - The Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Master Bartender, With 500 Recipes

By age twelve, I knew exactly where I wanted to live when I grew up: Big things happen in big places, and New York City was the biggest. Luckily, my father had instilled in me an unreasonable supply of optimism, which buoyed me through learning a city that could swallow you up without a trace. This optimism, along with a few good friends and dumb luck, was about all I had when I arrived in New York in 1969.

Within a year, I went to work for my best friends brother, Ron Holland, a principal in a small creative ad agency called Lois, Holland, and Callaway. Everyones favorite account at the agency was Restaurant Associates. Besides affording Ron and his partners the golden opportunity to work with the legendary restaurateur Joe Baum, it also enabled them to dine and entertain their clients at the very best restaurants in town. In short, a dream account. My chief occupation at the agency was to get in on as many expensive free meals as was humanly possible, which was easy given Rons generosity. It did not take long to get hooked.

Every Sunday wed meet for brunch at Charley Os at Forty-eighth Street and Rockefeller Plaza in the heart of Manhattan, assembling just before noon. The old blue laws forbade serving alcohol before noon on Sundays, so the stroke of midday was much anticipated. Ron Holland and his partner, the legendary art director George Lois, had worked closely with Joe Baum creating Charley Os. It was a terrific room, full of dark mahogany and leaded glass, with a long bar along the east wall and a beautiful oval window looking out on Rockefeller Plaza. On the walls hung photographs and quotes from great writers and great drunks; Rons own Grandma Holland, who pronounced on her death bed, Ill keep drinking them as long as they keep making them, was on the wall too, her wisdom right alongside Robert Benchley and Errol Flynn. Charley Os was a bar for everyone from writers to gamblers, secretaries to politicians, all drawn there by solid drink, hearty food, and tremendous good cheer. Charley Os was where Pat Moynihan threw his yearly St. Paddys-day breakfast; it was where Bobby Kennedy announced his candidacy; and it was the beginning of my love affair with the New York Bar & Grill.

If there was one single pivotal day in my life that determined my future, it was when I volunteered to fill in for a bartender who failed to show up for a party that Charley Os was catering at Gracie Mansion, the home of New York Citys mayor. The manager was frantic and asked whether anyone knew how to tend bar. None of the old-time barmen wanted to work a thankless, tipless gig; I lied and said I was a bartender. But before dashing off to the mansion, I rushed over to Mike Flynn, the head bartender, and asked, By the way, how do you tend bar, anyway? There was very little time, but Mike was a kind and sympathetic soul. He wrote out a list of common drinks and how to make them, and gave me some pointers on how to pour. In what seemed like seconds later, I was behind the bar at Gracie Mansion. Mayor Abe Beame was presenting the keys of the city to Rupert Murdoch, so all the top people in the Beame administration and a number of other prominent New Yorkers were attending. All of a sudden, it dawned on me that I was center stage and this was a captive audience. It was only a makeshift, poorly stocked bar, and I never really had to make anything that fancy, but there was something about being behind that bar that felt just right. I dont know how Muhammad Ali felt the first time he climbed into a ring, or how Louis Armstrong felt the first time he picked up a trumpet, but for me, I knew I was standing in a very familiar and cozy place. I was home.

In 1987, when Joe Baum opened the Promenade Bar in the newly restored Rainbow Room, I was offered the unique opportunity to create a classic bar in the old style. I was ten years into my bartending career with two great bars on my rsum, the original Charley Os and the Hotel Bel-Air. I had an intuitive understanding of what a great bar could be, but I still had much to learn about what made a great drink. What followed was a journey back in time to learn how to re-create the classic cocktails in the classic style. There wasnt anyone around who remembered how to do it. Using only fresh and natural ingredients meant doing away with fast and easy pre-made mixes and figuring out how to achieve just the right amount of sweet and sour, strong and weak. It meant searching for out-of-print cocktail books and experimenting with hundreds of recipes, adjusting them to a modern palate and todays larger portions.

And so began my quest for just the right cocktails with just the right recipes. What I learned while rediscovering the lost art of bartending is what I will share in this book: a treasure of recipes that will tantalize your palate, enliven your parties, and inspire you to embark on your own journey to discover new and exciting ways to mix drinks.

Cheers!