The Cocktail Companion: A Guide to Cocktail History, Culture, Trivia and Favorite Drinks

by Cheryl Charming, Gary Regan (Foreword by)

Overview

Drink your way through history, learn tips from the best bartenders, and become a cocktail connoisseur with this fantastic guide.

The Cocktail Companion spans the cocktail’s curious history from its roots in beer-swilling, 18th-century England through the illicit speakeasy culture of the United States Prohibition to the explosive, dynamic industry it is today. Learn about famous and classic cocktails from around the globe, how ice became one of the most important ingredients in mixed drink making, and how craft beers got so big, all with your own amazing drink?that you made yourself!?in hand.

In The Cocktail Companion, well-known bartenders from across the United States offer up advice on everything, including using fresh-squeezed juices, finding artisanal bitters, and creating perfect cubes of ice that will help create intriguing, balanced cocktails. You’ll want to take your newfound knowledge from this cocktail book everywhere!

The Cocktail Companion is a compendium of all things cocktail. This bar book features:

25 must-know recipes for iconic drinks such as the Manhattan and the Martini

Cultural anecdotes and often-told myths about drinks’ origins

Bar etiquette, terms, and tools to make even the newest drinker an expert in no time!

If you liked The Drunken Botanist, The 12 Bottle Bar, or The Savoy Cocktail Book, you’ll love The Cocktail Companion!

“Cheryl has demystified the cocktail and made it . . . fun and approachable! She takes us on an entertaining journey into the world of libations and those who serve them; their histories, stories, and antidotes. In the end, we better understand how we have arrived where we have and leave a more educated and appreciative imbiber!” —Tony Abou-Ganim The Modern Mixologist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633539242
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	11/30/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	549
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Cheryl Charming aka Miss Charming™ has been heavily steeped in the cocktail culture as a bartender since 1980. She has 15 published bar and cocktail related books. In high school she worked as a pizza waitress then quickly progressed to cocktail waitress, barback, bartender, and head bartender. With a penchant for travel, Cheryl tended bar many places around America, a cruise ship in the Caribbean, and Walt Disney World. While working at WDW she became the bar trick/bar magic instructor for Disney's F&B training program, Quest for the Best. Cheryl was also involved with hosting and participating in events for Tales of the Cocktail and teaching "Edutaining" cocktail classes for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line passengers. She is a member of The Bartenders Guild and The Museum of the American Cocktail. Cheryl studied Graphic and Interactive Communication at Ringling College of Art&Design and works as a freelance graphic artist on the side. Currently, she lives in the French Quarter and is the bar director at Bourbon O Bar on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans inside the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter. She was named "Mixologist of the Year" on 2014 by New Orleans Magazine.gaz regan, the bartender formerly known as Gary Regan, writes The Cocktailian, a bi-weekly column, for The San Francisco Chronicle. He has also written regular columns in The Malt Advocate, Nation's Restaurant News, Cheers Magazine, and The Wine Enthusiast, and his work has been featured in magazines such as Food Arts, Food&Wine, Wine&Spirits, Imbibe (UK&USA), and various others. His work is also published in magazines in the U.K., Australia, Austria, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Slovakia, South Africa, Switzerland, and Russia. gaz works regularly with companies such as Diageo, Pernod-Ricard, Heaven Hill, and other major spirits producers and marketers, and he travels the world holding workshops, judging cocktail competitions, and making public appearances. He's a regular judge at Diageo's World Class competition, he speaks at the London Cocktail Week, and he has judged cocktail competitions in Australia, France, London, Slovakia, and of course, the USA. gaz also heads up the Bar Smarts Graduates Program for Pernod-Ricard USA -- it's a traveling roadshow of cocktail innovators, movers, and shakers that roams the USA highlighting innovative bartending techniques of the best of the best in the bar business. gaz publishes a free e-mail newsletter, gaz regan's Notion, that reaches over 9,000 bartenders and consumers, and he maintains the Worldwide Bartender Database, an on-line community that's well over 2,000 strong. Over 80% of the members of this database are in the USA, and the vast majority of the best bars in America are represented here. gaz uses the database to let bartenders know about jobs, competitions, and festivals in The Weekly Shooter, and he also sends solid information to member bartenders in another weekly email newsletter, The Bartender's Bulletin. gaz's first book, The Bartender's Bible, was published in 1991, and between 1995 and 1998, together with Mardee Haidin Regan, he co-wrote The Book of Bourbon and Other Fine American Whiskey, The Bourbon Companion, New Classic Cocktails, and The Martini Companion. gaz wrote The Joy of Mixology in 2003, the Bartender's GIN Compendium in 2009, and The Cocktailian Chronicles: The Professor Years, Volume 1, was published in June, 2010. gaz regan's Annual Manual for Bartenders was released in 2011, and if he gets a move on there will be another edition in 2013. gaz also conducted Cocktails in the Country, a series of two-day bartender workshops, for seven years, from 2001 until 2007. During his 7-year run, gaz trained bartenders from top cocktail bars in New York, London, Bratislava, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, and various other major cities.

Read an Excerpt

The 18th Amendment
All About Prohibition, Bootlegging, and Speakeasies

A Brief History of American Prohibition
The nutshell version of the American Prohibition starts with American citizens in the late 1700s who fell into two groups: those who felt drinking alcohol was a sin (religious groups) and families weary of men spending money at saloons drinking while women and children were left at home penniless and starving. They believed that alcohol was a contributing factor in the rise in crime, health issues, relationship issues, and extreme poverty. Thus, the temperance movement was born.
For America, Prohibition officially started at one minute past midnight on January 17, 1920. However, Prohibition can be compared to a hurricane today in that you have plenty of warning before it hits, so large amounts of alcohol had previously been hoarded for years. When the supply ran out, alcohol was smuggled from Canada and Mexico, and bootleggers began making moonshine. People also took booze cruises twelve miles out (the legal distance) to international waters. Hidden secret bars called speakeasies opened, often hiding in a room behind a legal storefront business, or entrances were in alleys or in basements. It is believed that in New York City alone, there were over 100,000 speakeasies.
All of this created a booming business for bootleggers, but it also created a booming business for a new dark world of organized crime called the Mafia, which spread to all the large cities with many gangs and gangsters. The Mafia made and sold “bathtub gin” to speakeasies (and to whoever wanted it) by purchasing moonshine from bootleggers, or legally through medical suppliers by infusing it with juniper berries and other herbs in an effort to get the smell and taste of pre-ban gin. (They used large containers such as barrels—not bathtubs.) After bottling, they would cut the moonshine with water by placing the bottles and jugs under bathtub faucets. (The bottles would not fit under a sink faucet.) Around 1,000 people would die yearly because it is said that sometimes they would obtain cheap (and poisonous) industrial alcohol, which was used for fuels, polishes, etc., and use that in the cutting process as well.
As for cocktails, more mixers and ingredients were added to the Mafia’s bathtub gin to mask the nasty burn, such as the Bee’s Knees, made with lots of lemon juice and honey. Cocktails made with smuggled rum, whiskey, and brandy included the Twelve Mile Limit, Mary Pickford, and Between the Sheets. But the average middle-to-lower-class Americans just mixed—any booze they could get—at home with ingredients as simple as plain juices, herbs, and homemade syrups. These recipes will always remain a mystery.

The Top Ten Things to Know About Prohibition
1. Prohibition (the noble experiment) did not outlaw the drinking of alcohol—it outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol.
2. Prohibition did not only occur in America. It has happened at different times all over the world and still exists in some countries (and US counties) today.
3. To date, the American Constitution has twenty-seven amendments. The Eighteenth Amendment is when American Prohibition began (Tuesday, January 20, 1920) and the Twenty-First Amendment is when Prohibition ended (Tuesday, December 5, 1933) for a total of thirteen years, ten months, and fifteen days.
4. The Eighteenth Amendment did not happen in one fell swoop. Many states banned alcohol before, starting in 1851. It was the same for the Twenty-First Amendment; many states did not lift the ban for years and, today, there are still counties that have alcohol bans resulting in “dry” counties. The Twenty-First Amendment left the decision up to the states.
5. The fight for nationwide American Prohibition was not something that happened in a few years. It began in the late 1700s with the Temperance Movement (a movement to subdue the widespread drunkenness in America).
6. Legal alcohol during Prohibition included sacramental wine for churches; patented medicines; use in scientific research; industrial development of fuel, dye, and other things industries might need; and use in hospitals for cleaning. Homemade beer, wine, and cider, and pre-banned alcohol could be drunk in the privacy of one’s own home.
7. Up until the 1920s, the only American women allowed into the large main rooms of saloons/bars were prostitutes and madams. In nice bars there were small “Ladies’ Rooms” where prominent women could drink. The speakeasies from 1920 to 1933 were the first drinking establishments where women could patronize the whole bar.
8. Cocktails and drinks in speakeasies were known to be expensive, so you saved up for a special night on the town, had plenty of money (or were with someone with money), or just partied at home.
9. Out of necessity, Appalachian mountain bootleggers tinkered with their vehicle engines to make them faster than police cars. This lead to what we know today as the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
10. If you happen to be traveling through Kansas today, then feel lucky because they win for having the longest alcohol ban (sixty-eight years between 1880 and 1948). The alcohol ban was lifted by a new Kansas state law that was passed in 1965. However, it put all public bars out of business because only private bars were allowed. Twenty-one years later, in 1986, the private bar ban was lifted and within a year, 400 public bars opened. However, there was a stipulation—30 percent of bar sales must be from food. On a side note and to open the crazy Kansas box even more, in the 1970s—unbelievably—5’5” Vern Miller (ex–police officer, deputy sheriff, and county marshal who then went on to graduate law school) was elected as the Kansas attorney general in 1970. His job was to aggressively enforce Kansas’s liquor laws. Examples of his hostile assertiveness included raiding Amtrak trains that were passing through Kansas and forcing airlines to stop serving liquor while traveling through Kansas’s airspace. Miller made headlines and a book about him was published in 2008.




 

Table of Contents

Foreword 6

1 Step Up to the Bar: An Alcohol Timeline 7

2 From Antiquity to America: the History of Alcohol 36

3 The 18th Amendment: All About Prohibition, Bootlegging, and Speakeasies 41

4 Shaken, Not Stirred: Vodka 48

5 Mothers Ruin: Gin 51

6 Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of…Rum 54

7 South of the Border: Tequila 58

8 Whichever Way You Spell It: A Brief History of Whiskey/Whisky 60

9 How Sweet It Is: Liqueurs 64

10 Liquid Bread: Beer 67

11 It's All About the Grapes: Wine 70

12 What to Drink Before and After Dinner: Aperitifs and Digestifs 73

13 The Green Fairy: All About Absinthe 75

14 An Essential Ingredient; Bitters 78

15 What Exactly Is a Cocktail Mixer? A Guide to Making Your Own 82

16 The Jewelry of the Drink: Cocktail Garnishes 86

17 On the Rocks: A Brief History of Ice for Cocktails 92

18 Bar Hopping: Famous Cocktails from Around the Globe 96

19 Cocktails 101: A Guide to Classic, Modern Classic, Popular, Famous, Official IBA, and Standard Cocktails 130

20 Look it Up: The Best Online Cocktail Sources 151

21 Behind the Bar: The Fifteen Most Influential American Bartenders 155

22 Changing the Way We Drink: Craft Bars 164

23 Serving Cocktails: A Guide to Cocktail Vessels 173

24 Tools of the Trade: The Essential Cocktail Bar Tools 177

25 Neat or Straight Up: Getting Familiar with Drink-Making Terms 181

26 Rules to Drink By: Bar Etiquette 182

27 Trending; What Influences Our Imbibing 185

28 Cocktails in Film: The 1930s to the 2010s 190

29 Cocktails in Literature: From Shakespeare to Today 207

10 Cocktails in Television: The 1950s to the 2010s 213

11 Name Your Poison: Cocktails and Alcohol Celebrities Drink 223

32 Neighborhood Watering Holes: Historic Bars Around the World 228

Acknowledgments 243

Index 244

Cheryl Charming 253

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This book is a toboggan ride through the history of the cocktail. Packed with wonderful facts and nuggets at every turn. Cheryl has mined some of the leading experts to come up with a compelling story.” —Dale “King Cocktail” DeGroff, author of The Craft of the Cocktail and The Essential Cocktail

“Cheryl has demystified the cocktail, and made it what it should always be, fun and approachable! She takes us on an entertaining journey into the world of libations and those who serve them; their histories, stories, and antidotes. In the end, we better understand how we have arrived where we have and leave a more educated and appreciative imbiber!”—Tony Abou-Ganim, author of The Modern Mixologist

“Eureka! Cheryl Charming just made the internet obsolete. The bartending maven once again has done all the digging and delivered the gold on the history of everything bartending, cocktails, and cocktail bars.”—Tobin Ellis, BarMagic of Las Vegas

“Cheryl Charming makes facts fun again! In addition to page-turning chapters on drink evolution through the millennia and the backstory of just about every famous cocktail (I particularly enjoyed her revelations about the Cosmopolitan). This book offers thoroughly entertaining sections on cocktails in film, literature, and television. The “Name Your Poison” list, in which Cheryl cites the favorite drink of celebrities past and present, is alone worth the price of the book."—Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, author of Sippin' Safari, Beachbum Berry’s Intoxica!, Beach Bum Berry’s Remixed, Beach Bum Berry's Grog Log, and Beach Bum Berry’s Taboo Table

“Cheryl has compiled a wealth of knowledge and experiences from virtually every corner of cocktail culture, and masterfully collated it all into a fun book that ushers the reader along a grand tour of kaleidoscopic indulgence.”—T.A., Author of Breaux Absinthe: The Exquisite Elixir

“You know what would be valuable? A ten-volume encyclopedia of drink. You know what’s even more valuable? Ten volumes of information condensed into one. And that’s what Cheryl Charming has compiled —a comprehensive resource for both professionals or serious amateurs curious about spirits, cocktails, the history behind them, and how to make ‘em.”—Wayne Curtis, Author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails

“This book is a comprehensive, thoroughly researched, easy to read compendium of cocktail history. You can open it to any page and find yourself engrossed for the next hour. Buy a copy for your bar, your coffee table, heck, even your bathroom!”—Philip Greene, Author of To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion and A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris

From the Foreword:

"In her inimitable fashion, Miss Charming, the bartender who is considered by many, myself included, to be the ultimate Queen of the New Orleans Cocktail Scene, has delivered yet another fabulous book, chock-full of all manner of cocktailian splendor. And this one’s a doozy! The world of cocktails flows with fascinating trivia, incredible folklore, accurate historical stories, some tall tales, and lots of straight, hard facts. I believe that Cheryl Charming has detailed near-as-darn-it every single one of these pearls of liquid wisdom in this tome. Skim through it for a few minutes, and see how much time passes before you can even dream of putting it down. Who else would describe garnishes as jewelry for cocktails? Nobody. That’s who. It’s part of Cheryl’s unique style, and it’s part of what makes her stand out in any crowd of cocktail aficionados. You’ll find, too, that Cheryl goes the whole nine yards when it comes to research. Fancy a Ramos Gin Fizz, for instance? You’ll find that a certain Henry Charles “Carl” Ramos invented the drink in 1888 and his bar went through an incredible 5,000 eggs every week to keep up with demand for the drink. But Cheryl doesn’t stop there. Read on and she’ll tell you where to get the best Ramos Gin Fizzes in New Orleans today, and I wasn’t surprised to see that Bourbon O Bar, where Miss Charming struts her stuff, is one of them. I’ve had a Ramos Gin Fizz at the Bourbon “O” Bar. It was sublime. This book will walk you through drinking scenes from movies, books, and television. As you start this literary bar crawl you might want to keep in mind that Cheryl has also provided a guide to historic bars around the world here, so a literal bar crawl could be in your future too. How about starting off in Dublin at the bar where Oscar Wilde once worked? You’ll find it in here. "—Gaz Regan, Author of 101 Best Cocktails