Customer Reviews

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

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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.

"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."

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