The History of Bartending (Part 1)
Everyone has his or her reason to follow bartending as a career. There is the financial security, the social growth, and the prospect of touching sensitive parts with another person.
But what has really kept me interested in this career is its history.
Bartending, or “pouring things into things” as it is more commonly referred, is one of the oldest professions next to prostitution and snake charming. A craft that harkens back to the good old days, when our grand parents and their great-grand parents would gather around a fire, weave a tale of hearty American ingenuity, and attempt to distill horse urine.
You see, before you can even begin to scrape the surface of the History of Bartending you need to fondle the under carriage of Distillation. Unlike wine and beer, which are historically connected to early advances in civilization like the cultivation of crops (i.e., grapes and barley), spirits require a very specific second step after fermentation: distilling, which is historically connected to civilization’s decline (i.e., WhiteClaw and Boozy Milkshakes).
While fermentation can happen completely by accident, distillation requires a very specific set of intentions. Anyone can stumble upon slightly fermented grain, but it takes a very special kind of mind to think turning it into moonshine is an improvement.
That’s where bartending really begins to take shape. Using flavors that some might find unpleasant and combining them with other ingredients (citrus, sweetener, bananas shaped like dolphins) to create something completely original. These early cocktails may seem basic compared to the kind you might find on a menu today but they laid the foundation for the classic cocktail formula many experienced bartenders follow to this day: one part ice, one part glass, and the rest part whatever else you can find around the house.
The cocktail possibilities are endless but where did this idea to combine ingredients originate?
Cocktails, as we know them today, were inspired by British punches. These were large bowls made of spirits mixed with fruit juice, spices, and other flavors. Punches were created in the early 17th century to mask the flavor of inferior spirits coming from newly discovered parts of the world and to cover up the harsh realties of being British.
Despite its potency, it wasn’t uncommon for large parties to empty dozens of punch bowls in a single sitting. George Washington once ran up a bill that included seven large bowls of punch, along with 60 bottles of claret, 54 bottles of Madeira, 8 bottles of cider, 8 bottles of whiskey, and 22 bottles of porter. The tab was so large that it was impossible to accurately split the check. Washington knew that one of the other founding fathers, probably Dave, had a few more ladles of punch than he was letting on.
It was around this time our nation began shrinking these large flowing punch bowls to individual sized punches, or, as it would come to be known, the boll weevil.
I’m sorry, I meant the Cocktail.
Recent evidence has shown that the term “Cocktail” likely came, and I am not making this part up, from the practice of inserting a piece of ginger into a horse’s backside. This practice caused the horse to “cock its tail,” giving it the appearance of youthful vigor and alertness. With this idea in mind bartenders would combine spirit, sweetener, citrus, ice, and bitters while trying to stay atop a now bucking horse trying to expel a wad of raw ginger shoved up its rear. This is also how shaking cocktails was invented.
Remember this was during simpler times when men where tough, women were homely, and both had full mustaches.
In the next installment of the “The History of Bartending” I will discuss the forefathers of the American Bartender, the kinds of cocktails they established that exist to this day, and what other ingredients our grandparents were mixing. (Hint: It’s more urine).
Stay Inspired
I have managed to find ways to keep myself busy while inside these past weeks but to be honest, it has gotten a little difficult to stay inspired. What life is missing right now are those little elements sparking creativity that come from social interaction and coming up with believable stories to avoid social interaction.
Those of us fortunate enough to be in the hospitality industry can usually find inspiration thanks to a screaming, red-faced authority figure or the steady stream of culture walking though our door reviewing us with two stars.
That’s why restaurant workers are so alert. If you are not paying attention, then you might accidentally knock a cocktail over, spilling the drink on a guest or breaking the glass into the ice. Then as you bend over to burn the ice hear a “thwhip! fwump!” sound, only to discover a knife wobbling in the wall behind you, meaning you have become entangled in yet another web of international espionage and intrigue in the middle of Friday Night Happy Hour.
This stimulus keeps us constantly ready to solve problems before they happen. For example, employees in bars and restaurants have to constantly be on the look out for the Department of Health, whose belief is that, as a safety precaution, you should never serve anything, including cereal, without gloves or a welding helmet.
Most managers will use this underlying constant dread to create better systems for handling produce, lines of communication between the front and back of house, and elaborate plan usually involving smokescreens and body doubles should the DOH ever step through the door.
So I don’t want to loose the creative spark that comes when surrounded by so many stimuli. To help keep myself inspired I have been studying flavors and attempting to recreate drinks at home. This is hard because I don’t have the resources or tools I normally have at work but it is helping me reevaluate recipes and reinvent them so they can be made by anyone with dubious hygiene and wearing sweatpants.
Recently I was looking through my copy of The Fine Art of Making Drinks, and I found a recipe for the “Daiquiri De Luxe.“ I was very interested in making this but the problem was that some of the ingredients, such as Cuban rum, were hard to get, and another called Crème d’Ananas was obviously made up.
Not a problem! I simply looked around my home kitchen for appropriate substitute ingredients, and I was able to adapt the recipe to meet my specific needs, as follows:
Daiquiri De Luxe De La Nick
8 Parts Cuban Rum (Set aside)
2 parts citrus (How long has this lime been here? Is it still good?)
1 part Crème d’Ananas (Google it. Holy crap it’s a real thing?)
Procedure
1. In a large tin, store all of your cookies.
2. Rummage through tin for any Girl Scout Cookies left over from a previous purchase.
3. Pour milk into a medium glass.
And there it is!
Admittedly I have been consuming more milk and cookies than making cocktails but it is important to keep practicing to stay fresh. When this pandemic blows over I plan to re-enter the work force with a fresh set of eyes and a recipe book full of new ideas. I look forward to seeing you at my bar and serving you this cocktail well deserving of both stars:
The Bold Fashioned - Similar to the classic Old Fashioned recipe but substitute the bitters with just a hint of mayonnaise.