Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum Cocktail to the Zombie [Paperback]

Ted Haigh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

The authentic vintage cocktail has made a comeback. This book does not repeat the timeworn cocktails of old. While old-fashioneds, martinis, rusty nails, margaritas, and negronis are all great drinksùand this book includes the most authentic recipesùyou can find them anywhere.

Here, historian, expert, and drink aficionado Dr. Cocktail has hand-picked 80 drinks rarely made today, and all of them deserve revival. Some are from the nineteenth century, some from the Prohibition era, and some from just after World War II, as the golden age of the cocktail was waning. All are retrieved from extremely uncommon sources. In fact, some of these drinks were found carefully penned into old cocktail manuals or on scraps of paper and may never have been published. They are true treasures, indeed.

Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails pays homage to the great bartenders of the past and the beverages they created, lost in time, but still grand and full of potential. If you have half the fun looking at this book and trying these recipes as the author did putting them together, a great party is sure to ensue.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ted Haigh, a.k.a. Dr. Cocktail, makes his living as a graphic designer in the Hollywood movie industry and has worked on such spectacles as O Brother Where Art Thou?, American Beauty, and The Insider. Although he has been diligently researching cocktails since the Æ80s, his moonlighting as a cocktail historian became public in 1995, when he hosted the America Online spirits boards. In the intervening years, he has been quoted and referenced by the New York Times, Esquire, the Malt Advocate, and MenÆs Journal, as well as various books and other media. He is a partner in CocktailDB.com, an encyclopedic database of cocktail knowledge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Quarry Books (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592530680
• ISBN-13: 978-1592530687
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,078,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ted Haigh, a.k.a. Dr. Cocktail, makes his living as a graphic designer in the Hollywood movie industry and has worked on such spectacles as O Brother Where Art Thou?, American Beauty, and The Insider. Although he has been diligently researching cocktails since the '80s, his moonlighting as a cocktail historian became public in 1995, when he hosted the America Online spirits boards. In the intervening years, he has been quoted and referenced by the New York Times, Esquire, the Malt Advocate, and Men's Journal, as well as various books and other media. He is a partner in CocktailDB.com, an encyclopedic database of cocktail knowledge.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Secrets of the Cocktail, October 15, 2004

By 

Robert Hess (Lake Forest Park, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum Cocktail to the Zombie (Paperback)

The cocktail is far more then just booze sloshed into a glass. It is culture, history, cuisine, and within it can be found the muse that inspires us to dream. Within the pages of "Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails" we can clearly see the inspiration that Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh found from his own personal muse.

This book is clearly not just "yet another" volume of random recipes, it is instead a carefully architected portfolio that provides a unique insight into this thing we call a "cocktail". The recipes presented throughout this book are both obscure and amazing. A few of them, such as the French 75, Aviation, Derby, and Pegu Club are libations that may periodically find their way onto a cocktail menu here and there, but others, such as the Jupiter, Modernista, Corpse Reviver #2, and Income Tax are ones you'd be hard pressed to find a bartender who had heard of them, much less knew how to make one. But that is not to say that they deserve this obscurity. Each of the recipes presented in this book are wonderful examples of the culinary capabilities hidden within the cocktail.

The recipes aren't the only things that are amazing within this book. Throughout, you will find wonderful historic insights, from one of the few people truly capable of providing them, that will open your eyes to what the cocktail once was, and with luck could eventually become again. There are also beautiful pictures, of not only the cocktails themselves, but also of historically significant books, bottles, and other related miscellanea.

If you are a bartender who takes pride in your craft, then this book will provide you with a wealth of new recipes that you can use to expand your repertoire. If you are a home mixologist, then this book will open up a whole new landscape for you to discover. The secret adventure, awaits.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great recipes, can be made at home, November 12, 2004

By 

Phlosar "Kim" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum Cocktail to the Zombie (Paperback)

Fascinating book! I have many books on vintage cocktails. I also recommend books by Paul Harrington and the Regans. The books complement one another. Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails is fascinating to read. Recipes for drinks are provided, but also included is their history, the availability and source of ingredients, and the author's opinion on the drink. Enough information is provided to actually make these drinks and know what to expect. Thus far I've successfully mixed Zombies and Aviations. I would have bought this book just for the original Zombie recipe, which is included with lots of detail. The book is beautifully photographed, replete with great pictures of ephemera from cocktail's golden age. Did I mention the great discussion of orange bitters and of Applejack? Get the book and experience some great cocktails.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent urban archeology, October 24, 2004

By 

Sven A. Kirsten "urban beachcomber" (Silverlake, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails : From the Alamagoozlum Cocktail to the Zombie (Paperback)

This book comes along like a cocktail guide, but really is a fascinating journey into past lifestyle pleasures and obsessions that are long forgotten, illustrated with rare visual ephemera.

The science of urban archeology has another subcategory now: Cocktail archeology. Jeff Berry and his Polynesian potion research has given us two fine volumes of almost extinct Tiki lounge libations and the way they are to be prepared correctly ("The Grog Log" and "Intoxica"), and now Ted Haigh expands the field to classic cocktail history.

Ted's research of decades has been distilled into this handy little tome, resulting in a powerful concoction of recipes and stories from the golden age of mixology.
The author never was a bartender, but an ardent customer and a fan. In years of experimentation and alcohol alchemy he has honed his sensibilities to determine which quality cocktails deserve to be resurrected and which are better left forgotten. Yet his superior knowledge never tempts him to take an esoteric stance, his language and instructions are easy to follow, even for the amateur who has just gotten his first whiff of the allure that exudes from cocktail culture.

The recipes do not contain any ingredients that are impossible to get, and a resource guide in the back lists the suppliers of those cocktail components not quite available in your neighborhood market.

Thus, finally, after being unremembered for too many years, a taste bud teaser like the Monkey Gland can be enjoyed again, because it does not, as rumor had it, actually contain the supposed virility booster of animal origin, but a rare spirit that has recently enjoyed a revival, the distillation of Herbsaint, Absinth. To create a cocktail with Absinth that tones it's distinct taste down to a faint pleasurable sensation is not easy, but the Monkey Gland achieves this task admirably when the steps delineated in "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails" are followed correctly.

I sincerely hope that this fine work will not only be used to inspire the home bar aficionado, but also to enrich the menus of quality cocktail bars around the world.