Home Bartending

[eje]

A lot of us here are not professional bartenders, simply enthusiasts who have been bitten by one aspect or another of the culture and flavors which surround bar tending and cocktails.

I was wondering when home bar tending really took off in the US.

Thinking about movies, it seems like, pre-prohibition, the epitome of the sophisticated drinker was somebody out at a fancy club in New York, Paris, or London.

Post-Prohibition, the epitome of sophisticated drinker becomes someone like Nick Charles in the "Thin Man" movies. Someone able to mix their own cocktails at home, and expound upon the virtues and philosophies of the proper cocktail.

Questions:

When did it become possible for citizens to easily purchase liquor for home use?

At what point did something like the modern liquor store begin to exist?

When did the Tavern, a social gathering place centered around drink, become the bar?

[Splificator]

I was wondering when home bar tending really took off in the US.

..................................

When did it become possible for citizens to easily purchase liquor for home use?

At what point did something like the modern liquor store begin to exist?

When did the Tavern, a social gathering place centered around drink, become the bar?

These are all questions worthy of more detailed treatment than an off-the-cuff board post, but faute de mieux here's how I understand it:

Mixing social drinks was part of a certain sporting kind of gentleman's accomplishments from the late 1600s to the mid 1900s. A gent was expected to be able to mix a bowl of Punch, a hot Toddy, even (in America) a simple Cocktail (spirits, sugar and bitters were kept on the sideboard). In fact, the first edition of Jerry Thomas's book was aimed at just such a constituency: bon vivants, amateurs who liked the good things in life and wouldn't trust a servant to concoct them.

The mid-Victorian years saw Punch lose its cachet and bartending become professionalized. By the late 1860s, drink books are becoming more oriented towards the trade and less toward the amateur; the 1876 and, especially, the 1887 editions of Thomas's book are aimed at professional bartenders, not amateurs.

A couple of generations later, though, home mixing was back: the first decade of the 20th century saw a bunch of home mixing guides published, and newspapers start advertising mixing gear as gift items. Whereas the earlier generations focused on Punch (Dickens, e.g., was famous for his mastery of the Punch-brewing ceremony), now the Cocktail was what everyone focused on. I don't have a ready exlanation for the two-generation gap or the shift in focus; it's just something I've noticed in poking around.

Citizens could always buy booze for home tippling, just not necessarily factory-sealed bottles of it. There were elaborate liquor stores in 1840s new York and Gold-Rush California. But the truly modern liquor store was a creation of the 1890s-1900s. Advertising, standard brands of liquor, fancy bottles of imported this and that, the whole nine yards.

And the tavern became the bar in the first one or two decades of the ninettenth century. it was an American thing. We were busy and liked a drink, as quick as possible.

[eje]

Thanks for those answers!

Lots to think about.

I should have known that liquor stores were around, as I did know Berry Brothers and Rudd have been in business in England since around 1700.

I just wasn't sure if they would sell liquor as well as wine, (port, sherry,).

I guess the liquor stores would buy casks of liquor and then package in containers for shoppers?

Interestingly, at the Cadenhead Whisky Shop in London, you can still select a bottle size (20cl, 35cl, and 70cl) and then choose to have it filled from one of four casks of malt whisky or one cask of rum.