Splificator

This I do not know. I haven't got enough information--recipes, descriptions--on those to tell. Most references are to Mint Julep. I've never noticed such a thing, but then again I haven't been looking for it, either. Peach brandy does turn up in a lot of early drinks, though. When well aged, it was highly prized (we're talking about an aged eau-de-vie here, made with fruit and pits, not the sweetened liqueur we know now).

Not a hell of a lot, as far as I can tell; the two classes form a Venn diagram. Here, though, are some tendencies I've noticed: Cobblers never contain mint; Juleps usually do Cobblers rarely if ever contain spirits (Jerry Thomas' Whiskey Cobbler is an aberration, even--I suspect--an abomination). Juleps usually do. Cobblers must contain citrus peel or, more commonly, fruit; Juleps can contain it, but often don't. So yes, you could have a drink with lemon, madeira, sugar and ice and call that a Cobbler or a Julep. But a drink with brandy, rum, sugar, mint and ice would be a Julep, and never a Cobbler.

Huh. Good question. I think by the time the Southside came along things like gin Juleps with lemon were a thing of the past, due to the process fatdeko was talking about. That, and the different format--tumbler drink with ice versus straight-up cocktail--would lead me to doubt an actual historical connection. And, BTW, a country Julep in a canning jar with mint, sugar and shine doesn't sound too bad to me at all.

Both were common. When, as the story goes, the Prince of Wales had one of Jerry Thomas' Juleps, he thought it resembled a lemonade.

Don't get me wrong--I fully agree that a bourbon Julep can be a heavenly drink, as can a rye one; in fact, when I make Juleps at home, I usually drink rye or bourbon ones, and not only because I don't want to use up all the XO (VS-grade cognac doesn't always make for a satisfying Julep, I find). When I'm feeling really sporty, I'll break out the Booker's or the Thomas Handy. And George: As far as I can tell, the heyday of the fancy, fruit-flavored Julep came before the Civil War; the quotes you've extracted from Google books cover the field pretty well: lemon (or occasionally lime was the chief culprit), and was shaken up with the ice, mint, sugar and booze, pineapple was rubbed around the edge and strawberries and such were reserved for garnish. From what I've seen, those were the generally-accepted practices (see, in particular, Marryatt and Maynbe Reid, above). Of course, America was (and is) a big place, with a lot of inventive bartenders and thirsty customers, so individual practice was bound to vary. Oh, and yes: eediot. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Much.

I think you're absolutely right. You can see the beginning of it in the article bemoaning the death of the "real" Julep that was reprinted in the 1887 revision of Jerry Thomas' Bar-Tenders' Guide--this at a time when bartenders were telling journalists that the Julep was among the most popular drinks in the summer. By the first decade of the 20th century, I think it became a self-fulfilling prophecy; by then, even the New York Sun, who shoulda known better, was buying into it; saying that not even the great Jerry Thomas himself knew how to make a real Julep (which was of course patent horseshit--it would be like saying Dale DeGroff doesn't know how to stir a Martini).

Right there with you on that one. Heavenly.

Lord knows I've had many a Julep in a Julep cup, but I'm kinda sick of the whole Julep-on-a-pedestal-as-icon-of-southern-culture thing (I probably shouldn't make compound words that long). The Julep was a standard bar drink for most of the 19th century, and not just down South--New Yorkers liked 'em just as much as anyone else, if not a shade more (given the summer climate here, that makes sense); you could get a Julep at any good bar in the country. T I bring this up because no bar in Christendom is going to set coin-silver mugs free among the populace, which means that that whole Simon Bolivar Buckner ritual is actually inhibiting the free flow of Juleps in American bars. So I'm agin it. Make 'em in glasses. So what if you don't have a thick layer of frost on the outside of the cup--the drink will still taste great. The shaking's simply an expeditious way of mixing it and making it cold. Plus, bartenders always used to shake 'em, so it's a nod at tradition--and an older tradition than the silver-cup-on-a-tray Julep, at that.

That's because I just made it up. What I mean is juleps from the period--stretching from Al-Rhazes in the 800s until the late eighteenth century--when the word meant a medical preparation, not a recreational drink (but, as fatdeko points out, there's a very fine and permeable line here, just look at the history of cordials or that of methaqualone). The glib answer would be I don't order a Mint Julep--unless it's Chris McMillan's Library Bar at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans, bars I know aren't generally set up to do Juleps. As George points out, the Julep is best made with cracked or shaved ice, and I know few bars that have bother with Lewis bags and fewer still (okay, none) that have big blocks of ice and shavers. That said, my ideal Julep requires a simple 10-step procedure. 1. In a sturdy 8-oz tumbler, dissolve 2 teaspoons powdered Demerara sugar in 1/2 oz water. 2. Insert a couple sprigs of mint, stems upward, and lightly press the leaves in the sugar-water mix (okay, it's a syrup--or a julep). 3. Remove the mint and discard. 4. Fill the glass with cracked ice, as cold as can be. 5. Add 3 oz XO-grade cognac and stir again. 6. Cover the glass with a small mixing tin, seal and shake well. 7. Break the seal and pour the liquid and ice from the tin into the glass. 8. Add a little more ice, to make up the volume (it will have sunk because of melting), stir once more, and float 1/2 oz Inner Circle 115-proof rum on top. 9. Insert 3-4 sprigs of mint and a straw. 10. Then smile.

Oddly enough, the Camphor Julep was one of the more common medicinal, or pre-recreational, Juleps (it would kinda have to be pre-recreational, wouldn't it). P.S. The Latin says nothing about "excess"--so best to leave this one alone entirely, even for sniffing.

See, this is why I tend to look askance at molecular mixology.

It's a New York drink of the 1910s, and appears in Jacques Straub's 1914 Drinks. I've seen references from 1910, but no way of telling if it's the same drink (there were competing formulae). As for another amaro, unfortunately I didn't keep a record of the ones I eliminated; here in Brooklyn, turning up a bottle of Ciciaro is no problem at all.

As a Brooklynite of 20+ years, I've always had a personal interest in this one. Not too long ago, our own Scratchline was generous enough to give me a half-bottle of the original, 78-proof Picon (thanks again!). The other day, I rummaged through the various hidey-holes where I keep my aperitifs and amari and rounded up enough to do a comparative tasting, Amer Picon against the world. Besides the Amer Torani, I had the following Italian amari: Abano (Luxardo) Averna Borsci Bruno Nardi Ciociaro Cynar Fernet Branca Lucano Montenegro Nonino Praga Punt e Mes Ramazzotti Plus a couple of little things from Santa Maria Novella and a stray bottle of Becherovka (what the hell). After much nosing and not a little tasting, the closest match in aroma and taste proved to be the 60-proof Amaro Ciociaro. Now, it's not a perfect match (it's a little more herbal), and admittedly 60 proof isn’t the same as 78 proof, but it does a great job of evoking the clean orange notes of the old Picon without being nearly as watery as the new Picon. Plus it avoids the vegetal notes of the Torani, which are entirely absent in the old Picon.

As far as I can determine, it's just raspberry syrup. The drink's history is a murky one; the earliest references to it I've been able to find date only the turn of the last century, give or take a few years. In any case, it's unlikely to be much older than the 1850s, when raspberry syrup was the hot new ingredient that everyone was using in their drinks.

The "wineglass" used to be a standard unit of measure, and it was 2 oz. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, as it fell out of use, some people interpreted it as an actual wine glass, and considered it to be 4 oz. At the same time, and I'm sure not coincidentally, the 2-oz metal jigger was introduced, and soon became the standard bartender's measure. Around 1900, this got supplemented by the 1 1/2 oz jigger, for cheapskates or lightweights, and even the 1 1/4 oz jigger, which was popular, we are told, in the bars around Wall St, as brokers liked their drinks small, but frequent. In general, though, it's safe to assume the 2 oz jigger is what is called for in a recipe like Straub's Bronx Terrace, which calls for 1/2 jigger each of gin and vermouth.

For what it's worth, Jacques Straub's 1914 Drinks has this one as 50-50 gin and French vermouth (still with the juice of half a lime). I think this works a little better. Craddock seems to have pinched the 2-1 version from Harry MacElhone.

I use both the OXO and the WMF--hah! Both are solid and efficient. In general, I prefer the OXO, but the WMF is bigger and fits some of my bigger shakers (such as, surprise surprise, the WMF Loft-series Boston shaker I've been using).

I think in this case we're talking largely about newspapers and periodicals that are left on microfilm. Searching for cocktail- and saloon-related stuff in them is incredibly daunting--there may be one full article of relevance every two or three months in a newspaper, along with a few passing asides that are buried on the bottom of the third column of page four; without an army of reserachers or nearly unlimited time it's practically impossible to get through the run of one newspaper (and I'm talking about the large, urban dailies), let alone all the ones that need to be searched. As of now, key, sporty newspapers like the New Orleans Picayune, the San Francisco Alta California, the New York Sun, Herald and Post and a heap of others are undigitized. From dipping into them, i can attest that there's gold there, and in abundance. Another source is cocktail books and other ephemera locked in the collections of people who aren't plugged into the informal network of collectors willing to share or grant access to what they have. And yet another is cocktail books in the Libranry of Congress. I've explored their collection and most of it is missing already, and what isn't is crumbling and won't last for much longer. unless they digitize it now, it won't be there to digitize in the future. Pity.

Kate Hafner's excellent article from yesterday's New York Times discusses a lot of these issues, at least the ones relating to digital versus non-digital research. In so much as it's a branch of historiography, mixography shares its woes and opportunities in the modern age. History, Digitized (and Abridged)--New York Times

That would be simoleons, frogskins, pelf, lucre. The things you clip off of the kind of sheep who bed on stocks without inside information.

The recipe in the Savoy book is lifted verbatim from the 1927 Here's How, by Judge, Jr., a popular little American cocktail booklet that Craddock appears to have known (the French 75 is also in it, and pretty much nowhere else). As for the name, I suspect it was a play on "Andy Gump," a popular cartoon character of the day.

As I always say, cocktail history is history that happens in a bar, and you know what goes on there. A quick note about making old drinks--one thing I've learned from making them as close to the recipe as you can (however close that may be) is that it sometimes takes a while to appreciate them. Often, their flavor profiles are a lot boozier and less zingy than we're used to, but just as often they make up for it with subtlety and pleasantness. But it can take a certain recalibration of the palate to appreciate them.

I gave my answer a few years ago in Esquire Drinks, which with everyone's indulgence I shall quote: Some are able to ignore all the baggage and focus on what's in the glass. I would prefer not to. For me, that added dimension of historicity is the most fun part of the cocktail.

The powers that be inform me that it is merely on hiatus, until its functionality can be integrated with the Esquire.com's new platform (or something like that--I kinda stopped paying attention after "functionality").

See, the reason I won't buy Gary a drink is so that nobody can say that he's only saying nice things about me since I keep him in Pink Squirrels (well, that and the incident in Petaluma, but I swore not to talk about that). But seriously, thanks, Gary--coming from you the kind words mean a lot! Still no P.S., though. And thanks, George, as well--we have our disagreements, but they are at least informed ones. I, too, am under the gun here and don't have the time to get into this topic--and thank you, Chris, for starting it (is this sounding tlike the Oscars yet?)--with both feet right now, but I would like to add a couple of quick observations. I think much of the contentiousness in this little subcategory of historiography is due to a clash of cultures, the old, book-based social history approach and the new, machine-aided internet one. It used to be, to say anything intelligent about the history of any particular cocktail, or of cocktails in general, you'd have to amass a respectable heap of scarce old bar books, compare the recipes they contained and any nuggets of anecdote, and attempt to come to some kind of judgment as to which was the most authentic and reliable (that's not necessarily the first one published). To make this judgment, you had to read a good deal of social history--travel books, biographies, memoirs, historical monographs, novels, etc. And, as Gary rightly observes (from bitter experience), you'd have to do a whole lot of reading for only a few little nuggets. Then came the database revolution. Now, you suddenly can quickly search old newspapers and magazines (which, being unindexed, at least as regarding things like cocktails, and on microfilm, used to be the ultimate haystack), as well as a whole lot of books that it would have taken you months to wade through. A lot of those insights painstakingly gained by the social history/bar books method can be exploded in half an hour's Googling (or equivalent in newspaperarchive, etc.). There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. The first one misses a lot, and has a tendency to be wrong on specific facts. But reading all those sources (rather than Googling through them) tends to fit one out with an excellent feel for the period studied, and provides a good deal of context. If you're lucky, this occasionally gives you a little bit of historical judgment. The second one is excellent at amassing facts, but it's not so good at creating a feel for the age; it might tell you when a drink (or whatever--these issues are applicable to many another historical field) was popular, but not necessarily why. Personally, I try to combine both, although my sympathy is probably with the first. This means, of course, that it takes me twice as long to finish anything.... The people I admire in the field, if it is a field, tend to be the ones who surround their facts with a framework of insight (and good writing); Gary Regan, William Grimes, Ted Haigh, Lowell Edmunds, Barnaby Conrad III and the (very) late Stanley Clisby Arthur. That said, I think our Mr. Sinclair is a truly excellent researcher and hope he keeps it up.