173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails : Potations So Good They Scandalized A President [Paperback]

D. J. Frienz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2001

173 Cocktail Recipes from before America's Prohibition Era including numerous absinthe, champagne cocktail, julep, pousse, cobbler, and punch recipes. Book includes a resource page for ordering ingredients, 20 fun facts and stories about drink in history (George Washington's favorite drink, why Ben Franklin "flipped," how Winston Churchill's mother inspired a New York bartender to create the Manhattan, a 1913 scandal of the "I didn't inhale" variety involving Teddy Roosevelt, and over 40 turn-of-the-20th-Century beverage-related advertisements, illustrations, railroad beverage menus, and quotes. Introduction by George Herbert Walker (grandfather of former President George Herbert Walker and great-grandfather of current President George Walker Bush).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tom Bullock, esteemed bartender at the St. Louis Country Club, was able to work magic with beverages both alcoholic and not. He became the first African-American to publish a book on drinks, called The Ideal Bartender (1917), which featured an introduction by George Herbert Walker, a devotee of Bullock's and great-grandfather of our current president. In 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails: Potations So Good They Scandalized a President (Teddy Roosevelt's penchant for Bullock's juleps tainted his presidential bid), D.J. Frienz, who edited Good Things to Eat As Suggested by Rufus, brings together Bullock's original recipes with turn-of-the-century memorabilia and 20 pages of historical drink facts.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Frienz has copied famed African American bartender Tom Bullock's cocktail recipes from Bullock's 1917 book, The Ideal Bartender and mixed them with some very light historical background and a good shot of definitions of terms to concoct a novelty book of little consequence. Frienz favors atmosphere over substance. He gives no context as to drinking habits and the place of blacks in the drinking business in Louisville and Saint Louis, where Bullock plied his trade, or anywhere for that matter, and he makes big claims for historical hiccups (such as a supposed scandal following President Theodore Roosevelt's denial of having downed a cocktail). The recipes and illustrations hint at the world of men's clubs now past (indeed killed by Prohibition, which opened doors to women as coequal with men in speakeasies a fact Frienz ignores), but the book tastes like flat beer. Recommended only for the most avid, and thirsty, collectors of drinking trivia. Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Howling at the Moon Press (January 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965433323
• ISBN-13: 978-0965433327
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,454,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" for anyone who enjoys mixing their own drinks, August 10, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails : Potations So Good They Scandalized A President (Paperback)

The only beverage book that includes lost and almost-lost cocktail recipes from before 1920, 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails: Potations So Good They Scandalized A President is an amazing glimpse into the history of liquor in America, as well as a collection of so many different drink preparations that even the most gregarious connoisseur is certain to find something new and especially intoxicating. In addition to the drink mixes themselves, this book also memorializes the life and times of the recipes' original author, Tom Bullock (1872-1964), the first African-American to write a drink book. Present-day co-author D. J. Frienz has added over 40 illustrations, 20 pages of little-known facts about the history of drinking, and suggestions as to where to purchase ingredients that might be hard to come by. 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails is a "must" for anyone who enjoys mixing their own drinks, or is searching for a new taste in their cocktail glass.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Book Of History And Of Longing", February 28, 2001

By 

"dc51445" (The Tulsa World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails : Potations So Good They Scandalized A President (Paperback)

"Like a great civilization, the cocktail flourished, went out of fashion, and faded. These are recipes from the great exodus." says Mark Brown, Food Writer at The Tulsa World. "You never really miss something," says Tom Rush, bartender,"until you don't have it." "D. J. Frienz found Rufus Estes in her mother's kitchen. But to find Tom Bullock, she had to go online. There was just something about Estes' 1911 cookbook. Gravy-splattered and grease-spotted, it told a story that Frienz couldn't let die. In 1999, she published "Good Things To Eat As Suggested By Rufus" so it wouldn't. . . . . This time, it's Bullock and his 1917 recipes from 'The Ideal Bartender.' It's a remarkable collection of cocktail recipes from a remarkable, if mysterious, barman. Up to and perhaps beyond Prohibition, Bullock mixed drinks at the St. Louis Country Club and the Pendennis Club of Louisville and was quite revered for it." "Behind the bar at the St. Louis Country Club, Bullock shook cocktails for such drinkers as Teddy Roosevelt and George Herbert Walker. Sound familiar? His great-grandson is your new president." . . . . Frienz' "concoction is '173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails." As with Estes, she's taken Bullock's original text and shaken it up with anecdotes, quotes, sources and all sorts of imagery from the cocktail's primevil period. It's a longing for the classics that inspired her." "I love things that last," Frienz said, "things that are deep and have meaning. A perfect cocktail is a beautiful thing." . . . . . "Somewhere in St. Louis, his [Tom Bullock's] old house still stands. Like the cocktail of pre-Prohibition America, it's all but condemned."

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails, June 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: 173 Pre-Prohibition Cocktails : Potations So Good They Scandalized A President (Paperback)

Includes 7 absinthe recipes and a handy reference guide for ordering it over the internet. Just what I needed after seeing Moulin Rouge!