April 24, 2013 
A photograph from an advertisement for Ronrico Puerto Rican Rum in Life, 1953. LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Cocktails at art shows are no novelty these days. In fact, Dalzell Hatfield, of Los Angeles’ famous Hatfield Galleries, thinks that’s exactly their trouble—no novelty. Mr. Hatfield himself is a gourmet as well as an art connoisseur. At a private showing recently he devised two entirely new cocktails made with Rum. He called them simply Cocktail “X” and Cocktail “Y”. Reaction was immediate and enthusiastic. They stopped the show. Guests demanded the recipes. Since then, many have been serving Cocktail “X” and Cocktail “Y” in their own homes and telling their barmen how to make them. Cocktail X 4 pts. light Puerto Rican Rum 1 pt. very dry Sherry Stir with plenty of ice like a martini. Serve in a cocktail glass with an olive or onion. Cocktail Y 3 pts. gold Puerto Rican Rum 2 parts Ruby Port Stir with ice. Serve in chilled cocktail glass with cherry or twist of lemon.

A photograph from an advertisement for Ronrico Puerto Rican Rum in Life, 1953.

LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Cocktails at art shows are no novelty these days. In fact, Dalzell Hatfield, of Los Angeles’ famous Hatfield Galleries, thinks that’s exactly their trouble—no novelty.

Mr. Hatfield himself is a gourmet as well as an art connoisseur. At a private showing recently he devised two entirely new cocktails made with Rum. He called them simply Cocktail “X” and Cocktail “Y”. Reaction was immediate and enthusiastic.

They stopped the show.

Guests demanded the recipes. Since then, many have been serving Cocktail “X” and Cocktail “Y” in their own homes and telling their barmen how to make them.

Cocktail X

  • 4 pts. light Puerto Rican Rum
  • 1 pt. very dry Sherry

Stir with plenty of ice like a martini. Serve in a cocktail glass with an olive or onion.

Cocktail Y

  • 3 pts. gold Puerto Rican Rum
  • 2 parts Ruby Port

Stir with ice. Serve in chilled cocktail glass with cherry or twist of lemon.

 April 15, 2013 
Life, May 27, 1946. ZEBRA ROOM in the Town House, Los Angeles, featured “Vesuvius,” which costs $5. Recipe: pack 1 1/2 ounces shaved ice in glass, pour in 1/2 ounce grenadine. Add more ice and pour it over one ounce creme de menthe. Repeat with Cointreau, then with Southern Comfort. Top with lemon rind soaked in rum and dipped in sugar. Light it.

Life, May 27, 1946.

ZEBRA ROOM in the Town House, Los Angeles, featured “Vesuvius,” which costs $5. Recipe: pack 1 1/2 ounces shaved ice in glass, pour in 1/2 ounce grenadine. Add more ice and pour it over one ounce creme de menthe. Repeat with Cointreau, then with Southern Comfort. Top with lemon rind soaked in rum and dipped in sugar. Light it.

 September 5, 2012 

Father and General Catchins and Captain McNeilly and Captain Wat Stone and Mr. Everman would forgather every so often on our front gallery. These meeting must habitually have taken place in summer, because I remember Mother would be in white, looking very pretty, and would immediately set about making a mint julep for the gentlemen - no hors d’oeuvres, no sandwiches, no cocktails, just a mint julep. After the first long swallow - really a slow and noiseless suck, because the thick crushed ice comes against your teeth and the ice must be kept out and the liquor let in - Cap Mac would say: “Very fine, Camille, you make the best julep in the world.” She probably did. Certainly her juleps had nothing in common with those hybrid concoctions one buys in bars the world over under that name. It would have been sacrilege to add lemon, or a slice of orange or of pineapple, or one of these wretched maraschino cherries.

—William Alexander Percy, “A Small Boy’s Heroes”, Lanterns on the Levee, 1988. Read his recipe here.

 August 15, 2012 
The Second Best Summer Drink! A 1937 advertisement in Life. via A Dash of Bitters.

The Second Best Summer Drink! A 1937 advertisement in Life. via A Dash of Bitters.

 April 11, 2012 

TEQUILA SHOTS

Pour into a shot glass: 1/2 oz. tequila.

Turn one hand sideways as if to shake hands and form it into a loose fist, then lick the portion between your thumb and the knuckly of the forefinger. Quickly sprinkle with: salt.

Drink the tequila in one swallow, them immediately lick the salt off your hand and suck the juice from: a lime wedge.

Repeat the process as often as good sense allows.

 —The squarest possible Tequila shot, brought to you by The Joy of Cooking.
 March 18, 2012 
That’s a way to begin a recipe! From, Joseph Fleischman, The Art of Blending and Compounding Liquors and Wines, 1885.

That’s a way to begin a recipe! From, Joseph Fleischman, The Art of Blending and Compounding Liquors and Wines, 1885.

 February 12, 2012 
 January 30, 2012 
What? From Robert Kemp Philp, The Best of Everything, A Domestic Manual, 1888. Limonade au Lait.—The juice of seven lemons, half a pint of sherry, three-quarters of a pound of white sugar, and a quart of boiling water; mix, and when cold add a pint of boiling milk; let stand for some hours, then strain clear through a jelly-bag, and ice. This is always better if made the day before it is required.

What?

From Robert Kemp Philp, The Best of Everything, A Domestic Manual, 1888.

Limonade au Lait.—The juice of seven lemons, half a pint of sherry, three-quarters of a pound of white sugar, and a quart of boiling water; mix, and when cold add a pint of boiling milk; let stand for some hours, then strain clear through a jelly-bag, and ice. This is always better if made the day before it is required.

 January 25, 2012 

Blackberry Sour

1.5 oz. 100 proof Bourbon whiskey
1 oz. lemon juice
1 barspoon 1:1 simple syrup
1 barspoon blackberry preserves
most of one small egg white

Dry shake the lemon juice, whiskey and egg white. Add the syrup and preserves and shake with ice, strain twice and serve. After Morgenthaler’s Kentucky Breakfast.

Clare, who isn’t much of a Bourbon drinker, finds this very agreeable. Me too.

 January 13, 2012 

Tom and Barb

2 oz. Old Tom gin
2 barspoons 1:1 simple syrup
3 or 4 dashes Fee Bros. rhubarb bitters

I’m using the new Ransom Old Tom Gin. Not exactly a winter drink, but it could pretend to be one.

 January 5, 2012 

Amoriah

1 oz. amaretto
2 oz. Bourbon whiskey
1 dash orange bitters
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stirred with ice and served up.

This was a favorite of mine during the last few years of college, though during that time it was often reduced to telling a bartender, “Amaretto and whiskey, fifty fifty.” The orange bitters can be—and til a few days ago have been—omitted.