Some swell pre-prohibition cocktail recipes

I found some really neat recipes in a book written by Tom Bullock, who I guess bar-tended at the St. Louis Country Club in the late 1800's/early 1900's. Here are a few I thought you might find interesting:

Bamboo Cocktail:
Fill large bar glass 1/3 full of fine ice
add 3/4 jigger sherry wine
3/4 jigger Italian vermouth
strain into a cocktail glass

Bacardi Cocktail:
fill barglass with lump ice, add
1/2 jigger Crusiner Grenadine
1 jigger Bacardi rum
strain into a cocktail glass

Curacoa Punch:
fill barglass 3/4 full with shaved ice, add
2 tsp bar sugar
4 dashes lemon
1 pony Red Curacoa
1 jigger brandy
1/2 pony Jamaica Rum
decorate with fruit and straws

Mint Julep:
use a large silver mug, add
1 lump sugar in 1/2 pony water
fill with fine ice
2 jiggers Old Bourbon Whiskey
stir well
add 1 boquet of fresh mint, being carefull not to bruise the mint!

Bombay Cocktail (I don't know what they were thinking on this one):
in a claret glass add
1/2 pony olive oil
1/2 pony vinegar
1/2 pony Worcestershire sauce
drop 1 ice cold egg into glass
top with salt and spanish paprika

Diarrhea Draught (gotta love the name!):
in a whiskey glass add
1/2 jigger Blackberry brandy
1/2 pony peach brandy
2 dashes Jamaica Ginger
top with grated nutmeg

Notice the spelling of Curacoa. I copied everything the way it was written in the book. There were tons more and lots of old photos and advertisements. I'll post some pics this weekend.

What's the name of the book? Can't wait to see the pictures

The book is called "The Ideal Bartender" and is available for free on the Gutenberg Project: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13487

The Bacardi Cocktail in that book is an anomaly to the world of cocktails, much prefered is the next cocktail: Bacardi Cocktail - Country Club Style (This recipe includes Lime Juice).

If anyone is interested in the Bacardi Cocktail, then follow this link:

http://wiki.webtender.com/wiki/Bacardi_Cocktail

Cheers!

George

http://wiki.webtender.com/

I think the Bombay Cocktail could be used for a frat intitation. I don't feel well just reading it.

If a recipe like one of those above calls for "Bacardi", which grade does that usually mean?

Back then Bacardi was made in Cuba, so now it is actually Havanna Club. I'm pretty sure it is the white variety.

Thanks, finkdaddy.

On 2006-05-14 15:38, finkdaddy wrote:
Back then Bacardi was made in Cuba, so now it is actually Havanna Club. I'm pretty sure it is the white variety.

That's right. Under Castro the state took over the Bacardi operation and it was renamed Havana Club. Another company was started in Puerto Rico under the Bacardi name.

I just read in "Straight Up or On The Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail" that Bacardi was once made in a town called Dacquiri in Cuba. The book is highly recommended for your home library.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086547656X/sr=8-1/qid=1147718935/ref=sr_1_1/102-4309451-8663320?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Actually the Bacardi operation in Peurto Rico had already been started along time before the Cuban Revolution in the 1930s.

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Bacardi-Limited-Company-History.html

(copy and pasted from the Google cache of the above link).

"When Prohibition was repealed in December 1933 Bacardi was ready to fill the gap. Enrique promptly sent his son-in-law Jose to New York City to pave the way for Bacardi's distribution in the United States. Back in Cuba the political climate was once again boiling as Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, the country's army chief of staff, became Cuba's de facto ruler after a military coup. Unfettered by its tropical roots, Bacardi entered the U.S. marketplace in a bang--selling over 80,000 cases in 1934. To save the company the United States' expensive import duty tax (nearly $1 per bottle), Jose Bosch decided to open another Bacardi facility in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Under American control since the Treaty of Paris in 1901, Puerto Rico was considered U.S. soil and its exports duty free. Under the name Bacardi Corporation, the new company soon moved to larger accommodations across the bay in Catano."

Also, Bacardi wasn't made in Daiquiri, it was made in Santiago, Cuba. And near Santiago is a beach and mine called Daiquiri.

For those of you who like to handle an actual book "The Ideal Bartender", 1917 has recently been reprinted as "173 pre-Prohibition Cocktails".

The book "The Ideal Bartender" is also available as a PDF scan of the original book as part of the Michigan State University Historic American Cookbook Project. I found this completely by accident and remembered this thread, so I figured I'd let you all know about it.

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/browse.html

Scroll down to the "I" section and there it is ready for download. The Bombay Cocktail recipe sounds to me more like a salad dressing rather than a cocktail.

I found some of the other cookbooks to be interesting as well.

Enjoy!

• SV

[ Edited by: serious voodoo 2006-12-25 12:17 ]

This book is pretty interesting. That Bombay Cocktail reads more like a recipe for salad dressing. The Boating Punch looks like your typical tropical cocktail. I love the Bombay Punch recipe for 40 people. I'll definitely try that at our next party.