Shows
2021-11-212h 27
2021-10-232h 32
2020-06-041h 58
2020-03-261h 53
Monster in a GlassEpisode 96: Putting On The Ritz – Ritz SidecarClassic cocktail history Ritz Sidecar
2020-01-282h 16
2019-09-121h 58
Monster in a GlassEpisode 94: Welcome to the Club – Pendennis CocktailThe Pendennis Cocktail seems to have been a drink that was hardly known. Appearances in recipe books are few and far between, and when it did show up, there were variations on the recipe. Not much to talk about there. However, while the cocktail information was sparse, there seems to be a whole lot of different Pendennis drinks including a toddy, a mint julep, and even an eggnog. So, this Pendennis must be something important. Join us as we discuss this almost completely forgotten cocktail. We also explore the Pendennis Club, where it got its name, and why...
2019-02-211h 13
Monster in a GlassEpisode 93: Currying Favor – Pegu Club CocktailThe Pegu Club Cocktail takes us all the way to Myanmar, to ask the question. What was the Pegu Club? And how did it get its own cocktail? The answer is…not 100% sure! We know it was a club for Brits who lived and had their holidays in Myanmar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this episode we try to piece together what the purpose of the club was, why the British were there (hint: it rhymes with mimperialism), and a very tiny slice of Myanmar’s long and rich history that led to the cock...
2019-01-241h 25
Monster in a GlassEpisode 92: Welcome to the Ginshine State – Palm Beach SpecialI’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the Palm Beach Special probably has something to do with Palm Beach. So pack your flip-flops, buckle up, and prepare to be sweaty, we’re headed to Florida! Join us as we discuss the pioneering days of Florida, the wealth that made it a destination, how the situation with grapefruit juice in the 1940s might have made the Palm Beach Special fade away, as well as monkeys, pastel, people hiding, and a whole lot of swampiness.
2019-01-101h 58
Monster in a GlassEpisode 91: Like Mother Used to Make – Mother-In-Law CocktailThe Mother-in-Law Cocktail is a tricky one to discuss. It is a family recipe out of New Orleans, and the ingredients are in great proportions to make it something you store in a bottle. This drink calls for New Orleans staple Peychaud’s Bitters, Angostura, Bitters, Amer Picon, Orange Curacao, simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, and Bourbon. Just short of every booze possible.So, with nothing to go on as far a history of this cocktail we talk about, you guessed it, Mother-in-laws! Join us as we discuss the long-running mother-in-law jokes and stereotypes with roots in Vaudeville and th...
2018-08-301h 23
Monster in a GlassEpisode 90: Making a Monkey Out of Us – Monkey GlandWe have done a number of episodes that have taken us into the realm of gross. Sometimes it is the ingredients, sometimes it is the backstory, sometimes it is because we are gross. The Monkey Gland is a special one because hits on all three!Join us as we break down the why Harry MacElhone and not Frank Meier created this drink, how the drink was used as a defense in a trial, and how this drink was named after some very weird virility experiments involving, you guessed it, monkey glands.The recipe is:1 ½ o...
2018-08-161h 39
Monster in a GlassEpisode 89: Out With The Old – The ModernThe Modernista, or as it is known originally, The Modern Cocktail, has recipe that appears to have all the flavors and all the booze. Just not all the flavors you might think go together with absinthe, scotch, orange bitters, lemon juice, and rum. It seems this is one cocktail that really was forgotten, starting in the 1910s and barely making it to the 1930s.Join us as we take a look at what modern means, what was considered modern in the early 20th century and the term modern in advertising. We also get all philosophical with this one...
2018-08-021h 37
Monster in a GlassEpisode 88: Stinking Rich – MillionaireYou would expect the Millionaire Cocktail to be opulent, featuring the finest liquors, a white truffle garnish, served in a solid gold goblet, rimmed with caviar, and a $100 bill for a straw. Or it is all just a trick to get you to drink something that is hardly different than a hundred other cocktails so you can feel fancy.This drink should have been fairly easy to research except for the fact that there were two different recipes running concurrently for the first half of the twentieth century. Not to mention other Millionaire drinks with different recipes popping...
2018-07-191h 23
Monster in a GlassEpisode 87: Crying Over Spilt Milk – Milk PunchThis episode we are talking about Milk Punch, which in newer recipes resembles a boozy milkshake. As the recipes get older, they get, let’s say slightly more unusual. This is the oldest drink that we have covered so far, with origins dating to at least the early 1700s, probably earlier. Going back to these early recipes, we learn about women’s roles as brewers, distillers, wine-makers, and home-doctors during the 17th and 18th centuries.Join us as we talk a whole lot about milk, like probably more than you ever wanted to hear about it. In addition to c...
2018-07-052h 10
Monster in a GlassEpisode 86: When the Fat Lady Sings – Mamie Taylor CocktailFor as many times that we have said that there aren’t a whole lot of Scotch cocktails, we have another one for you! This one also has the name of a person, which sometimes is helpful like the Lucien Gaudin and sometimes unhelpful like the Barbara West. We are somewhere in the middle with The Mamie Taylor. This cocktail is Scotch, lime juice and ginger ale, and was often noted as being a refreshing summer drink.Mamie Taylor was an operatic singer who seems to have been involved in musical theater and plays around the end of th...
2018-06-211h 45
Monster in a GlassEpisode 85: The Gin Is Mightier Than The Sword – Lucien Gaudin CocktailAt first glance, you might say that this cocktail has an unusual combination of ingredients, featuring gin, Campari, French Vermouth and Cointreau. And then you realize it is a Negroni with Cointreau. Oh well, there are only so many ingredients!The Lucien Gaudin Cocktail on the surface seems like a perfect cocktail to be able to research because, someone’s name! As our Barbara West episode showed, it isn’t always going to be that easy. In this case, we Gaudin, a champion, left-handed, French fencer, happened to be more of a household name than our vague Ms. West...
2018-06-071h 44
Monster in a GlassEpisode 84: Twisting the Lion's Tail – Lion's TailThe Lion’s Tail cocktail is one of just many, many recipes originating from the Café Royal Cocktail Book (1937), that never really appeared again until very recently. Most of the ingredients are pretty standard, with the exception of Pimento Liqueur, more commonly known as Allspice Dram nowadays.We discuss this rum-based liqueur’s Caribbean origins, strong Christmas flavor, and unusual pairing with bourbon instead rum. In this episode, the name of the drink leads us to a long history of the lion as a symbol of Britain, and a whole lot of twisting of its figurative tail.So...
2018-05-241h 52
Monster in a GlassEpisode 83: Besottedly Correct – The Liberal CocktailIn the U.S. of today the term liberal has very specific connotations. What did it mean when the Liberal Cocktail was created in the 1890s though? Was the creation a celebration of or jab at late 19th-century liberal ideals? If you had that label, what were you fighting for?Join us as explore the concept of liberalism and its meaning during the early 20th century. We also discuss the Liberal Cocktail, its standout ingredient Amer Picon, and the nearly complete disappearance of both. In the case of the cocktail, we take a look at whether a backlash...
2018-05-111h 30
Monster in a GlassEpisode 82: Semper Vinolentia – Leatherneck CocktailFirst printed in Ted Saucier's Bottoms Up cocktail guide, this drink is not well represented and probably not well liked but nevertheless we did our 82nd episode on it. It first appears nearly simultaneously with the introduction of blue curacao on the market, it's recipe in Saucier's book, and a Bols ad for blue curacao roughly around 1951. It seems to have been given a spotlight for a short time by Bols and a couple of wheeling-dealing PR agents, Ted Saucier and Frank Farrell, who both did a stint in the Marines. It's an interesting little tale of cocktail invention in...
2018-04-261h 29
Monster in a GlassEpisode 81: By Jupiter's Beard – Jupiter CocktailA name like the Jupiter Cocktail immediately evokes images of the enormous planet with the great swirling storms and the Roman king of the gods, with thunderbolt in hand. The cocktail indicates power, something greater than all. I would expect ten different kinds of liquor served in a barrel, full of lighting, and on fire…or it could be just a martini with some Parfait Amour and orange juice.Join us as discuss this stormy-colored drink and its standout ingredient Parfait Amour. We also try to figure out whether the inspiration was a god, a planet, or maybe ev...
2018-04-1256 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 80: Jamaican Me Crazy – Jasper's Jamaican Planter's PunchJasper’s Jamaican Planter’s Punch is a more contemporary take on an old drink called simply, Planter’s Punch. Resembling punches of the colonial-era, Planter’s Punch appears to have originated in the Caribbean in the early to mid-1800s. Where exactly in the Caribbean is the question, since most references just point to the “West Indies.”The unusual thing about this drink is that there did not seem to be a standard recipe. Rum, lime, and sugar were the common ingredients among Planter’s Punches, but the rest of the recipe varied greatly.Join us as we explo...
2018-03-291h 26
Monster in a GlassEpisode 79: Like Watching Varnish Dry – Japalac CocktailDo you like cocktails that are named after a 19th century varnish? Then step right up to the bar and order a Japalac Cocktail. That’s right folks, nothing says quenching your thirst like old lacquer!This recipe shows up first and only in Albert Stevens Crockett’s Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931). It was another creation of Johnnie Solon, of Bronx Cocktail fame. Was Johnnie famous for anything other than creating the Bronx Cocktail? Well, Crockett will tell you he was also known for a Mint Julep that took 30 minutes to make! This episode explores why a cocktail name...
2018-03-151h 07
Monster in a GlassEpisode 78: Getting Rubbed Out – Jack RoseThe Jack Rose Cocktail ingredients look like a deconstructed fruit bowl, bringing together Applejack, lemon juice (or sometimes lime juice), and grenadine. Dating back to the early 20th century, Cocktail Bill Boothby appears to have brought it to print, but attributes it to New York bartender R.H. Townes. The name is a bit of a mystery. Is it a pairing of the jack in Applejack and its rose color? Or from a type of rose? Maybe it was created in reference to the gambling house owner and alleged member of the mafia, Jacob Rozenzweig, AKA, Baldy Jack...
2018-03-011h 34
Monster in a GlassEpisode 77: Gin and Taxes – Income TaxIt is hard to imagine why you would want to name a drink after something that the great majority of the world hates, but here we are with the Income Tax Cocktail. Harry Craddock appears to be the person who wanted to remind people that the government is coming for your hard-earned money, so you should probably drown your sorrows. This drink does not show up in very many places, but is often said to be just a Bronx Cocktail with Angostura bitters, which in turn is said to just be a perfect Martini with orange juice. So...
2018-02-151h 19
Monster in a GlassEpisode 76: Tying the Knot – Honeymoon CocktailThe Honeymoon Cocktail seems to first appear in Hugo Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks (1917), and contains an unusually sweet and fruit-based combination of ingredients, calling for Apple Brandy, lemon juice, curacao, and Benedictine. We take a look at what Benedictine is and how the Honeymoon Cocktail encountered a swapping out of the Apple Brandy for Calvados and more Apple Jack.We also explore the history of honeymoons, where the term originated, and origin myths surrounding this tradition in relation to marriage.
2018-02-011h 09
Monster in a GlassEpisode 75: Shot to the Heart – Have a HeartWith very few appearances in cocktail books, or really anywhere, it is probably fair to say that the “Have a Heart” cocktail didn’t make much of a splash at all. It seems originate from, and really only appears in Patrick Gavin Duffy’s The Official Mixer’s Manual (1934).The quotation marks allude to it being the title of something, but of what is hard to say. Some say that it is after a film of the same name, but the publishing of the drink recipe is the same year the movie came out, so maybe not so much. We t...
2018-01-1856 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 74: Always Darkest – Golden DawnThe product of a cocktail competition in London, the Golden Dawn is a boozy drink, almost entirely made up of Calvados, Brandy, and Gin. A newspaper article from 1930 mentions that cocktail purists were not happy with this drink winning the competition, simply because of the addition of fruit juice. We delve into the idea of what a cocktail is and isn’t, where the argument may have started, and why anyone really cares.Some point to the origin of the name deriving from a Rodgers & Hammerstein operetta, but it most likely received its name from the orange juice an...
2018-01-041h 10
Monster in a GlassEpisode 73: Off the Rim – Brandy CrustaSome say the Brandy Crusta is distinct enough to be considered an entirely different type of drink than a cocktail. Others say it is just a variation on or an evolution of a true cocktail. When it really comes down to it, having this kind of argument is just going to end up with you having a warm drink and a sad face. Going all the way back to the 1840s, this is one of the older drinks we have explored. The basic ingredients of brandy, lemon, lemon peel and the sugar crusted rim seem to stay consistent as time...
2017-05-291h 17
Monster in a GlassEpisode 72: Exploring All Avenues – The AvenueThis was a fun episode. The cocktail itself had a fairly ordinary background, so we made the most of it by disparaging passion fruit and spotlighting the UK Bartenders' Guild. The drink itself appears first (and only) in the Cafe Royal cocktail book which for the first time we discuss as part of the drinks compilation project the UK Bartenders' Guild took on in the 1930s. This drink is itself remarkable because it's the only one we've seen that features passion fruit juice and the Cafe Royal cocktail book is equally remarkable because it's the only cocktail recipe book t...
2016-01-1844 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 71: Unacceptable Condition – Fred Collins FizThe Fred Collins Fiz on first glance would almost certainly be the sibling drink of Tom and John. This one is kind of a mystery though because the ingredients don’t really match any of the drinks in the Collins family, not even Grandma Rye, Aunt Bourbon, or wacky old Uncle Rum.So then it is a fizz then, right? Because of the fizz in the name? Except it seems to be missing the second “z.” And there isn’t any soda water, which typically makes a fizz a fizz.There isn’t a whole lot to go on w...
2015-03-3033 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 70: Keeping It In The Family – The Ford CocktailThere isn’t a definitive explanation about how the Ford Cocktail got its name, so we get to do a whole lot of speculation on this cocktail. Dating back to at least 1895, it is a little too early to be named after the Henry of car fame. Luckily, there are so many other Ford options to choose from! Based on the timeframe, we explore Malcolm Webster Ford, a track and field athlete with daddy issues and a tragic end. A descendant of Noah and Daniel Webster, he came from a long line of literary talent. Unfortunately, his bookish family was no...
2015-03-2953 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 69: Waking with a Stiff One – The FogcutterI like a cocktail that tells you what it does for you. The Fogcutter lets you know right away, that this drink is going to clear away the cobwebs. How many cocktails can boast that it can make you less foggy?In this episode we take a look at this tropical drink that brings in the titans of tiki, Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber. This mid-20th century cocktail is generally attributed to Vic Bergeron, but saw a good deal of variation on the ingredients as different bartenders gave it their own touch. While tiki drinks might...
2015-03-2852 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 68: In High Spirits – The Flying DutchmanThe ingredients of The Flying Dutchman cocktail resemble a cold remedy, so I hope you like citrus! Or have a cold. This drink has orange gin, orange juice, lemon juice for extra Vitamin C, and a couple drops of Angostura bitters for color perhaps? Or digestion? Maybe just for fun? We don’t really know, because this cocktail is short on information about why and how it came to be. This one truly may have been a forgotten cocktail.We take a quick gander at the unusual ingredient that is orange gin, but the bulk of this episode is...
2015-03-271h 13
Monster in a GlassEpisode 67: Do Not Talk About Fish Club – Fish House PunchThis Fish House Punch takes us to all the way back to colonial America and includes stories you probably didn’t learn in elementary school. This punch is truly a monster in a glass, or maybe a goblet, or bowl, or whatever people drank punch out of in the 18th century. Containing nearly all the booze and all the sugar, this surely guaranteed the founding fathers could stay up all night getting trashed while creating a nation.In this episode we discuss the origins of the Fish House Punch in the the social club known as the Schuylkill Fi...
2015-03-2657 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 66: Ready for a Closeup – The Filmograph CocktailSomething about a cocktail named The Filmograph sort of screams early 20th century technology. “Folks! Gather around and see the future of moving pictures. Just a dime will introduce you to the wonders of the Filmograph!” We aren’t exactly sure what a Filmograph was, but it must have been something because we now have a drink named after it.With a lack of references to the drink and some vague information about film publications and projection machines, this one left us with a whole bunch of speculation on how it got the name.In this episod...
2015-03-2500 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 65: Cocktail Charlie – The Fairbank CocktailIf you do a quick search on the internet you will find any number of websites and blogs mentioning the Fairbank Cocktail, or more accurately, the Fairbanks Cocktail. You will also find that most confidently claim that the drink was named after actor Douglass Fairbanks. Occasionally, the voice of reason comes through and points to U.S. Vice President Charles Fairbanks as the origin for this drink. We here at the Black Liver Project try hard to do our research and present information as accurately as possible. Here is a hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with Do...
2015-03-2400 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 64: The Sun Never Sets – The East India CocktailThe East India Cocktail was first noted by Harry Johnson who claimed in his book in 1882 that this was a popular drink in among the British in India. It was hard to find any truth behind this, but it certainly sounds imperialistic. As we dive into East India Cocktail we discuss the long European colonial presence in the East, corporate interests evolving into national interests, as well as mutinies and rebellions.Come join us as we explore why this brandy-based cocktail might have been popular in India, some weird Canadian temperance poetry and the disgusting possibility...
2015-03-1744 min
2015-03-112h 04
Monster in a GlassEpisode 62: The Doctor Is In – Dr. CocktailMany cocktails got their start in the medicinal realm, and you can often see the transformations over time from cure-all to tasty beverage. So when a drink with a name like the Doctor Cocktail comes along, it is fair to assume that your aches and pains might be relieved from the ingredients. It does have citrus in it, so the Vitamin C might be warding off that pesky scurvy. Other than that, we don’t have much of an idea of how it got the name.It seems to have originated sometime in the 1920s and was...
2015-03-0434 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 61: A Little Diki-Diki – The Diki-Diki CocktailThe Diki-Diki cocktail sounds just dirty enough to make the 12 year-old boy in you giggle. Grow up! This is a sophisticated podcast. Hee-hee, it sounds like dick.The ingredients are definitely not the usual suspects, featuring the infrequently used grapefruit juice, the Normandy-based apple brandy, Calvados, and finally Swedish Punsch, an arrack-based liqueur. Wait a minute. No gin? No whiskey? No bitters? What kind of a cocktail is this?Unlike most of the cocktails we have covered, we know the exact origins of the cocktail AND its name! In his 1922 book, Cocktails: How...
2015-02-2332 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 60: Derby Town – The Derby CocktailSo having done the Mint Julep, what more is there to say about derbies?We take a look at the Derby Cocktail which poses a few problems when trying to talk history about it. First, there are numerous recipes for Derby Cocktails, and none seem to be related to the others. Second, derby could be referring to any number of things like the Kentucky Derby, derby races, derby hats, Derby, England, or the Derby restaurant. So which is it? All and none!The many derbies generally have a common source though in Mr...
2015-02-1132 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 59: Hitting a Delicious Sour Note – The Delicious SourThe Delicious Sour. I like a cocktail that tells you all you need to know right in the name. Sours are a family of cocktail going back a long way, with notable features of putting a lime or lemon peel in the glass and an egg white.We also dive into the life of William “The Only William” Schmidt, a bartender who some call the “godfather of mixology.” Acrobatic bartending feats, cranking out on-the-fly cocktails on a near daily basis, and creating cocktails with ten or more ingredients may have earned William this posthumous title. His recipe b...
2015-01-271h 08
Monster in a GlassEpisode 58: Leaving a Sour Taste – Whiskey SourThe Whiskey Sour is, er, well, whiskey with sour stuff in it. Sooo, good-bye? Just kidding, when there is nothing to talk about, we make something to talk about. This is another really, really old cocktail that is simple and has stayed relatively consistent with the ingredients until current day. It is definitely not the first sour out there, but it appears to have won the survival of the sour fittest contest against the brandy and gin sours.Join us as we explore this staple of the cocktail world. We discuss sour things, whiskey things, and...
2015-01-221h 42
Monster in a GlassEpisode 57: When Life Gives You Laraha – Curacao PunchThe Curacao Punch is generally attributed to Harry Johnson, and if you spell it the correct way of “Curacao” it is the earliest it shows up in a recipe book. However, if you spell it “Curacoa” then Jerry Thomas printed it first in his recipe book. I thought he might have just spelled it wrong, but mentions of “Curacoa Punch” show up in newspapers and books as early as the 1830s, and a recipe shows up in a periodical from the 1840s. In our experience, it probably was around even before this.With nearly 100 years of existence an...
2015-01-201h 04
Monster in a GlassEpisode 56: Two Men and a Cocktail – Crimean Cup a la MarmoraAs we proceed with the forgotten cocktails, I’ve noticed that it’s more difficult to squeeze the interesting background out of them. Often it’s just a couple of words smashed together and attributed to a new recipe. In this episode’s cocktail it’s an attribution made in honor of a personality that I consider less than the cocktail inventor.The cocktail is named after the Italian-Sardinian general of the Crimean War. He was a dashing European fellow, Alfonso Ferrero Marmora, climbing the ladder of prestige through his political career in Europe by saving dignitarie...
2015-01-141h 13
Monster in a GlassEpisode 55: A Communist Party – The CommunistWe are going to go out on a limb and say that the Communist Cocktail is probably named after Communists. Nothing states it definitively, but…Communist. This drink calls for Cherry Bounce in the original recipe, an old cordial made from sour cherries, the pits, sugar and spices. Cherry Bounce: the 19th century’s answer to Kool-Aid! It is a relative of Cherry Brandy, and Cherry Heering, used in most recipes now. The red color of Cherry Bounce or Cherry Heering is probably the reason it ended up with the name that it did, since when mixed it becomes a br...
2015-01-061h 31
Monster in a GlassEpisode 54: No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn – The Brooklyn CocktailIn this episode we take a look at the Brooklyn cocktail, which looks to be the product of Jack Grohusko from the early part of the 20th century. Most cocktails take some wondering and digging and guessing in order to figure out why a bartender gave it a particular name. With the Brooklyn, we go out on a limb here and say that it is probably named after the borough in New York. Sometimes it is not worth overthinking. There is no indication as to why it is called the Brooklyn though. Was this a sister drink of the...
2014-12-3030 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 53: Fool's Paradise – Blue ParadiseThe Blue Paradise, like many cocktails with blue in the name, is not blue. The ingredients must be blue then, right? Nope, purple, red and brown and we can pretty much guarantee that the mixing of these colors do not make blue either. This non-blue drink is credited to a Belgian bartender by the name of Emil Bauwens, of Bar Saint-James in Brussels, showing up first in the cocktail book Livre de Cocktails (1949) and really nowhere else.A name like Blue Paradise conjures images of beaches, palm trees, and tiki drinks with little umbrellas. The ingredients, howe...
2014-12-2328 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 52: The Best Part of Waking Up – The Coffee CocktailThe Coffee Cocktail is unusual in that it does not contain any coffee in it, and if you go by the strict rules of what makes a cocktail, it isn’t that either. Jerry Thomas, who seems to be the first person to write the recipe down, calls it a “misnomer” because of the lack of coffee and bitters. He attributes the name to an appearance that sure looks a hell of a lot like coffee, and this seems to be backed up by others sources. Could the name also be a reference a cocktail you drink in the mornin...
2014-12-1541 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 51: Taking Down the Chatham – The Chatham Hotel SpecialThe Chatham Hotel Special is pretty mysterious because it is not altogether clear where the recipe for this cocktail even came from. We had a hard time even finding any mentions of this drink anywhere, so it made it a little difficult to discuss something that doesn't seem like it really exists. But that didn't stop us from talking about this cocktail that resembles a heavy dessert. There isn't a tremendous amount of information on the history of the hotel either. We had a name of a place at least, so we took a look at this New York...
2014-11-251h 05
Monster in a GlassEpisode 50: On the Fence - The Stone FenceWe made it to 50 classic cocktails!! This is one of the lost COVID episodes and the final episode to be reproduced to replace an older version that didn't follow our usual format. This was done remotely with the usual team and a special guest Kristen Burton to give her input on the colonial aspects of the story we tell. The tasting team however was three of our regular cast of characters in a whole new Ward Eight bar post-pandemic. This all swirls around the Stone Fence, a colonial classic which was essentially cider and rum in a big cup...
2014-11-193h 23
Monster in a GlassEpisode 49: Left Me Standing Alone – Blue MoonClearly the Blue Moon is named after the song, right? Nope, and if you run through the other references to blue moons it probably isn’t any of those either. Don’t try to figure it out, just drink it.The first place it is printed in a cocktail book is in Recipes for Mixed Drinks (1917) by Hugo R. Ensslin. However, it may have actually been the work of Joel Rinaldo, a proprietor of a Bohemian café during the early 1900s. Rumor has it that the Blue Moon was sort of a signature drink in this haven...
2014-11-041h 37
Monster in a GlassEpisode 48: With Blinders On – The BlinkerWhen I first heard the name of this drink, I was puzzled how one could get a cocktail name from a car's turn signal. Of course, this is another case wherein the "old timey" speak means something totally different from what it means today. Back at the turn of the 20th century, when this drink became popular, blinkers were the blinders horses wore to keep them looking forward and it also was a slang term for black eye...both of which might be good ways to describe what the drink might do to you.Below is the research...
2014-10-0656 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 47: Out of Our Skulls – The RattleskullIf someone handed you a drink and told you it was called a Rattleskull, it would probably make you pause for a second, right? How could you not assume that you are about to drink something with the sole function of delivering blackouts and hangovers. Rum, brandy, and porter is surely no light concoction, but the name might be scarier than it actually is.Everything you find online about the Rattleskull lists this as an American colonial drink. Yay! History! Except there isn’t really any direct evidence that points to American colonists drinking anything by th...
2014-09-171h 43
Monster in a GlassEpisode 46: A Sloe Death – Blackthorn CocktailThe Blackthorn Cocktail is a real puzzler. It's an example of another cocktail that has multiple versions, which is not that unusual, but in this case the resource we're using has the outlying recipe. The name of the cocktail sounds sinister but it's nothing more than a connection to a berry bush indigenous to the British Isles...a plant festooned with small plum-flavored berries commonly used to make a liqueur called sloe gin. Learning that I was excited because...plums...YUM! But in our book, the recipe uses no sloe gin, no sloe berries, not even any plums, yet...
2014-09-0859 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 45: What's in a Name? – The BebboEpisode #45 I convinced Jay to come to the Brixton and record the history portion of the show. We sat down and Michael made us a couple of Bebbos. Our book tells us the word comes from an Indian dialect and means “toad”. If that’s true, there better be a reason, however, there is none we can find. Even if it’s a mistaken translation from bebdo (which means “drunk”), there needs to be an explanation why we’re delving into Konkani to name cocktails. Otherwise, it could be an African word or an Italian surname, or a small child drooling...
2014-08-0732 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 44: The Greatest Show on Earth – Barnum (was right) CocktailEpisode #44 features a popular personality from the cocktail era: Mr. PT Barnum. The name of the cocktail refers to Barnum's supposed famous saying that a "sucker is born every minute." But even as we look into this cocktail we can't verify much of anything and even the attribution of that phrase seems off. Given that Barnum was a temperance speaker from 1850 to his death, an attribution from him directly seems unlikely. We doubt he was making cocktails or ordering cocktails for himself or anyone else. Strangely enough, Jerry Thomas, the bartender who first published his recipes in 1862, owned a...
2014-07-0152 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 43: Who is Barbara West? – The Barbara West Cocktail Initially we all figured that this cocktail history would be a slam dunk. It has a name of a person...it's named after someone. It has to be easy to find out. We couldn't have been more wrong. This drink was a complete mystery. Jay could not find any references to it anywhere prior to our source book from 2009. So we couldn't find the source...and from there we couldn't identify the origin of the name. Looking at the name Barbara West itself, we searched for Barbara Wests of note. There is a Barbara West Titanic survivor. There also...
2014-06-2404 min
2014-06-161h 43
Monster in a GlassEpisode 41: A Drink with Count Charming – Arnaud's Special CocktailEpisode #41 takes us once again to New Orleans to sit down with a lesser known yet still classic cocktail, the Arnaud’s Special. In 1918 a French wine merchant, Arnaud Cazanave, moved to New Orleans to open a restaurant, aptly named Arnaud’s, and live the American dream. Unfortunately, in the next year Prohibition threatened to end that dream. With everything on the line, Arnaud basically ignored the law and continued serving alcohol at his establishment in secret rooms or in coffee cups. He was eventually found out and imprisoned, but as a popular citizen of the city and a little...
2014-06-1159 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 40: Jockeying for Position – Mint JulepOccasionally we will find cocktails where you can see a clear linear progression or evolution. This ain’t one of those. In this episode, we tackle the messy and minty history of the Mint Julep. While there is a pretty standard recipe nowadays for a Mint Julep, its early iterations varied from state to state and bartender to bartender. It might be change from brandy to bourbon or add fruit, or lots of fruit, or in one case ice cream and rosebuds. There was also a whole bunch of different methods for how to handle the mint. Just don’t cr...
2014-06-021h 32
2014-05-212h 02
Monster in a GlassEpisode 38: When Good Americans Die... – The BoulevardierOscar Wilde said, “When good Americans die, they go to Paris”. Not long after, many Americans came to Europe and died in the first World War. When the war ended many Americans stayed in Europe, often the more intellectual set of writers and artists including Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Dos Passos. At the time they were discovering the art and culture of their ancestors and a way of life devoted to experiencing the world’s richness, the United States was collapsing in on itself in a schizophrenic panic over loose morals and Communist/anarchist immigrants. No, the Americans, who had just survi...
2014-05-161h 30
Monster in a GlassEpisode 37: Knickerbockers Everywhere – KnickerbockerThe recipe goes essentially unchanged since the days that Jerry Thomas put the recipe in print in 1862. While many might attribute the recipe to Thomas because it shows up in his recipe book, we know that he, like many bartenders, were trying to fill out the books for publication. If you want to find the origin of the cocktail, you will have to look back before Thomas put the recipe down. Mentions of a Knickerbocker cocktail show up on the menu in Peter Bent Brigham’s oyster saloon in Boston, at the beginning of the 1840s. We know this th...
2014-05-061h 56
Monster in a GlassEpisode 36: Movin On Up – Park AvenueWhen you name a cocktail the Park Avenue, you are telling everyone that this is a rich and swanky drink. There isn’t a whole lot of history on this cocktail, so we take a deep look at one of the ingredients, Pineapple juice. Join us as we explore pineapples, how pineapple juice came to be, and the history of the Dole Company. We also take a quick look at that famous street that the cocktail takes its name from.
2014-04-231h 34
2014-04-172h 00
2014-04-101h 58
Monster in a GlassEpisode 33: Raising the Dead – Corpse ReviversPutting the word “corpse” in anything you are going to consume is probably a mistake, but Corpse Revivers seem to have weathered any associations with dead stuff. When you look at the name closely you pick up right away that this cocktail is intended to clear out the cobwebs and get you right up out of your grave, er, bed I mean. This one is an old one showing up in newspapers in the mid-19th century as a pick-me-up with a notably unusual name. As we learned with the Old-Fashioned episode, people seemed to think cocktails were a good...
2014-04-021h 39
Monster in a GlassEpisode 32: A Touch of Class – CosmopolitanIf you asked the average person to name a cocktail, The Cosmopolitan would probably be on the short list. If you asked the average person what was in it, you might not get past vodka in a martini glass with some other stuff. It is a heavily-recognized cocktail for sure, but it is it anything more than a souped-up vodka and cranberry?Join us as we head way, way, back to the 1980s to talk the evolution and disputed origins of this cocktail. We also discuss what cosmopolitan means, the drinks cultural significance, and a resurgence...
2014-03-241h 48
Monster in a GlassEpisode 31: By the Horns – Blood and SandYou say Blood and Sand and it generates images of a switchblade fight on a beach. The consensus though is that this cocktail is named for the 1922 bullfighting movie starring silent-movie era heartthrob, Rudolph Valentino. Most likely originating from Harry Craddock, it appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 first, and not many other places after that. There is no indication as to why Craddock called the cocktail a Blood and Sand, but we dive into the possibilities. Was he a fan of the film, or possibly Valentino? Did Rudy V. stop by the Savoy during his European visits in...
2014-02-241h 52
Monster in a GlassEpisode 30: Hitting It On The Head – Rusty NailThe Rusty Nail sounds like a rough cocktail, something that requires you to get a tetanus shot after you drink it. The ingredients don’t necessarily live up to the harsh name, but I hope you like Scotch! This drink is just Scotch, and the Scotch-based liqueur Drambuie for extra scotchiness and a bit of sweet. This cocktail, which really doesn’t start to appear with its dangerous name until the 1960s, involved a lot of piecing together and chasing legends to get the full story.This is the first time we are talking about Drambuie, so w...
2014-02-132h 06
Monster in a GlassEpisode 29: How About Them Apples – The Calvados CocktailThere are a couple of things to note about the Calvados Cocktail. One, it does in fact have Calvados in it so no misdirection there. Two, there is a whole lot of orange-flavor in this one, with orange juice, Cointreau, and orange bitters. I am not sure if the Calvados Cocktail gives you any Vitamin C, but hey, there is no harm in trying it if you want to get tipsy while fighting a cold.An apple brandy, Calvados is only Calvados if it comes from the Normandy region. This French cousin to the American Applejack...
2014-02-1035 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 28: The Real McGregor – Rob RoyWhile the recipe for Rob Roy cocktail is pretty standard today, it wasn’t always that way. Variations occur from the earliest appearances in cocktail books and continue on pretty much throughout the 20th century. So how do we get to a standard for a drink often referred to as a Scotch Manhattan?We discuss this mystery and the origins of this cocktail in the late 1800s, where Rob Roy seemed to be a pretty popular name for all kinds of things like hats, plaids, racing horses, an operetta, and of course whiskey. Then we dive ri...
2014-01-302h 14
Monster in a GlassEpisode 27: A Fine Kettle of Fish – Pimm's CupThe Pimm’s Cup is obviously a cup, right? I mean it is in the name. So why was it advertised as “the original gin sling?” Or is it actually a punch? Is Pimm’s No. 1 a cup? Or is Pimm’s Cup a cup? And just what are cups, punches, and slings? All these questions will be answered, and not answered as we explore this simple, yet complicated drink. You may want to take notes on this one to follow along.There isn’t a whole lot to this drink, so the focus of this episode is o...
2014-01-212h 08
Monster in a GlassEpisode 26: Dead in the Water – The Amarosa CocktailIn this episode we delve into the concept of extinct cocktail ingredients. It’s hard to put your finger on these dearly departed until you discover by happenstance, as I did, that you can’t complete the recipe. I stumbled into this circumstance by choosing the Amarosa Cocktail, another classic cocktail in the pantheon of aged beverages, but when I surveyed the list of ingredients there was one, Amaro Cora, that Michael said he didn’t have. When that happens I take it upon myself to acquire the missing component. When I went shopping, however, I discovered that nobody had any av...
2014-01-131h 13
Monster in a GlassEpisode 25: The Real Hanky Panky – Hanky PankyWas there ever any doubt that at some point in history there would be a cocktail with the name Hanky Panky, when cocktails so often have the reputation of leading to lascivious funny business? Whether the name was a reference to the cause, prevention, or embodiment of sexual activity, or completely unrelated is not totally clear. We explore the different uses of the term over time, and one of the stories behind the creation of the cocktail to see if we can nail down the intention of the name. We talk so much on this podcast about the bartenders...
2014-01-061h 41
Monster in a GlassEpisode 24: Horsing Around – Horse's NeckWhen it comes to consistency, the Horse’s Neck cocktail has a whole big lack of it. This cocktail started off with no booze in it, and then added really any booze you had on hand. As time went on, it was sometimes alcoholic, sometimes not. Sometimes it had alternate names like Horse’s Neck Highball, Stiff Horse’s Neck, Horse’s Neck with a Kick, or even Horse’s Collar.The only real consistency was that it had ginger ale in it, and a lemon peel in it. If you order one nowadays, the end of the pee...
2014-01-011h 38
Monster in a GlassEpisode 23: Against the Grain – Satan's WhiskerLikely a drink from Britain or its colonies in the early 1920s this drink comes in two versions, curled with curacao or straight with Grand Marnier. Despite looking hard for the nature of the name, we couldn't find a direct connection with the drink.We trained our focus upon the idea of Satan, it's origins and how the idea of the king of the underworld evolved over 4 millenia.
2013-12-131h 57
Monster in a GlassEpisode 22: In the Pink – Pink GinFor a pink drink that is nothing more than a glass of gin with Angostura bitters, Pink Gin wins the award for being the simplest cocktail with the most obvious name. With so few ingredients, it can’t be that strong though, right? Don’t let the color fool you, it is nothing more than a glass of gin with a few more dashes of booze. For flavor.Pink Gin is commonly known as a tradition of British Royal Navy officers, but did it actually start there? Join us this episode as we explore this drink’s place in Nav...
2013-11-191h 44
Monster in a GlassEpisode 21: Thicker Than Water – Bloody MarysThe Bloody Mary is another one of those cocktails that people have been fighting over for nearly a century. Because of its age and popularity it surely is a classic, but I think part of its popularity has been earned by its shock value. I think it's the kind of drink people suggest to elicit "ewws" but because it's actually good, it has stuck around as more than just a joke. Capping it off with a name deserving of a horror show, you have a classic with some staying power. The drink has two origin stories. One comes from th...
2013-11-121h 04
Monster in a GlassEpisode 20: Slingin in the Reign – Singapore SlingThe Singapore Sling has a bit of a tricky history to piece out. Most recipes nowadays have pineapple juice, and attribute the Singapore Sling recipe to the Raffles Hotel in 1915. While some evidence points in that general direction, it is hard to confirm. What muddies the waters is changing ingredients from reference to reference, bouncing between simple gin sling-based recipes to something that resembles a tropical drink. For additional confusion, sometimes it is a Singapore Sling, sometimes a Singapore Gin Sling, sometimes a Straits Sling. And just for fun the ingredients for a Singapore Sling in one book may...
2013-11-051h 57
Monster in a GlassEpisode 19: A Vicious Cocktail – The Algonquin CocktailThe story of the Algonquin Cocktail is truly a fascinating, confusing, and possibly widely misattributed one. I had heard this story before and loved learning about Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Roundtable. In 1919 a group of writers, actors and intellectuals began to frequent the Algonquin for lunch every day. They were known as the Algonquin Round Table or later, The Vicious Circle. These artists were the intellectual elite of their day. They became a social group that partied together in the evening and even vacationed together. They were sharp, clever and full of interesting ideas and banter, but as Dorothy...
2013-10-291h 04
Monster in a GlassEpisode 18: Go Big or Go Home – AlamagoozlumWith this episode, we're going back to the front of the book to a cocktail we've done previously, but as we continue the mission to convert all of the previous episodes to the new format, we learn a lot more about these bygone beverages and have a ton of fun in the process.The name alone fills one with excitement. What is it? It sounds jungley, or rather it sounds like a name given by Europeans for something coming from Africa. Is it a drink favored by big game hunters of the 1920’s? Is it a drink containing a...
2013-10-221h 11
Monster in a GlassEpisode 17: Three Sheets to the Wind – Navy GrogGrog sounds like the name of a caveman, but if you have any knowledge of the drink it might drum up images of being on a pirate ship. With good reason too. In the early incarnation you drank your watered-down 18th century rum from Admiral Vernon and you got back to work. Maybe a little more sober than you wanted.Like most drinks with simple ingredients and a long history, they evolve. More ingredients are available, bartenders get creative, and people start wanting their grog with a little umbrella. We take a look at Navy Grog courtesy of...
2013-10-141h 19
Monster in a GlassEpisode 16: Not Built in a Day – Negroni & AmericanoMost accounts say the Negroni is based on the Americano, with Campari as the featured ingredient in all of its bitter, bright red glory. The Negroni is what happens when the Americano gets more American, and by that I mean dumping the soda and adding more booze. Unfortunately, gaps in the timeline and sparse written evidence make it difficult to have a nice clean evolutionary trail from the Americano to the Negroni. We have the invention of Campari in 1860 and the appearance of the Americano in the late 19th and early 20th century, originally with just bitters not necessarily C...
2013-10-022h 05
Monster in a GlassEpisode 15: The Big Easy – SazeracTo say that the Sazerac Cocktail is synonymous with New Orleans would probably be an understatement. It is a cultural icon, a sense of pride, and its importance to the city can’t be denied. It also has one hell of a messy history. Really messy. For real, it almost broke us trying to piece it together. There are all sorts of stories as to how it came about, but it is difficult to pull out the truth from half-truths from legends from mistakes from deliberate lies.The Sazerac is a cocktail where the process of making it is...
2013-09-271h 49
Monster in a GlassEpisode 14: Tasting the Stars – Champagne CocktailIn this episode we dive into the history of champagne. We've had champagne in cocktails before, though not often, but this is the first drink that features champagne specifically by name. What better cocktail to discuss the background of the bubbly.Champagne comes from the Champagne region in France. The wine is fermented and bottled but then the weather turns cold and prematurely stops the fermentation. Once the weather warms up again, the fermentation kicks in again in the bottle. It's this on again off again fermentation activity that that traps carbon dioxide in the bottle or cask...
2013-09-121h 14
Monster in a GlassEpisode 13: Going Way Back to Long Island – Long Island Iced TeaCocktails are all about crafting, sipping, and enjoying the experience. To many, creating a cocktail is equivalent to cooking a fine meal. Raw ingredients carefully mixed to generate a taste that is to be savored, to be discussed for the nuances of the flavors and the way the ingredients play off one another.And then we have the Long Island Iced Tea! This monster of a drink features all the booze with about 1 ounce each of five different liquors, and just 2 ounces of those pesky non-alcoholic ingredients.The kicker is that it unexpectedly...
2013-09-111h 41
Monster in a GlassEpisode 12: In the Cold with Moscow MulesThe Moscow Mule shows up in very few cocktail books for something that seems to be one of the most popular cocktails ever. This one was exciting because got some new ingredients to talk about with Vodka and Ginger Beer. Vodka as an ingredient has not shown up in many episodes, mostly due to how little the liquor was used in cocktails up to the 1950s. Supposedly, the Moscow Mule turned this around and made vodka popular. Not so fast, we have some thoughts about how true this is.A first for us, the origins of...
2013-09-092h 05
Monster in a GlassEpisode 11: Just Old Fashioned – Old Fashioned CocktailThe Old-Fashioned Cocktail is probably one of the most famous cocktails ever, so you are almost not a cocktail bar nowadays if you don’t have some version on your menu. Researching the Old-Fashioned was a daunting idea at first, if for no other reason than being called something as non-descript as old fashioned. We can assume that it is probably referring to something very old, and in this case it turned out to be the true, original cocktail. The first, the prime, the archetype, the Elder cocktail. The one that allows purists to define what is, and what is...
2013-08-281h 56
Monster in a GlassEpisode 10: Papa's Poison – Hemingway DaiquiriWhen we did this episode originally we focused on the Hemingway Daiquiri. In our book "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails" there is a La Floridita Daiquiri, which apparently was also served at Hemingway's favorite hangout in Cuba, but then we needed to look into the origin of daiquiris in general.Basically a daiquiri is rum, sugar and lime juice and lots of cracked ice. Once again, here is a recipe that is not amazing in itself...it seems kind of obvious especially in Cuba, but it does have a definite origin that we were able to trace back...
2013-08-261h 54
Monster in a GlassEpisode 9: The Little Lie – Cuba LibreI learned a lot this episode. With this mixed drink I learned more about Cuba, Coca-Cola, the Spanish American War and the Cuban Revolution and I learned that the standard rum and Coke originally had a different name. [caption id="attachment_906" align="alignright" width="300"] Cuban Revolutionaries in Tampa.[/caption] The Cuba Libre is essentially a rum and Coke with lime juice added. I had no idea that this combination existed as a named cocktail previously. The tumultuous tale of how Cuba acquired its freedom...or almost acquired its freedom...must be told to get to the traditional story explaining th...
2013-08-201h 27
Monster in a GlassEpisode 8: Up in the Air – The Aviation As we have been doing these cocktails for a while, we have come to recognize several scenarios in how cocktails get their name, how their ingredients evolve and how they become popular. The Aviation follows one of these patterns so exquisitely that it serves as a perfect example to demonstrate how a cocktail with a popular name evolves into a winner. Jay started his research with information everybody knows...Hugo Ensslin created the Aviation we're familiar with in 1916. This is undeniable. However, in Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks he located a cocktail called the Aviation with a completely different r...
2013-08-1410 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 7: Pierced by the Gimlet – The GimletThis is an amazing episode. Since we recorded it, I've flipped it back and forth in my mind considering the content. My position on the Gimlet story has changed since I first heard it, but I'm still astounded by how it all comes together. Jason started be describing how he located the recipe first in Patrick Gavin Duffy's book, The Official Mixer's Manual and then verified that it was also in the UK Bartenders Guild's Cafe Royal Cocktail Book. Jay explained that when he does preliminary searches and finds the recipes first in these post-Prohibition usually he finds the fi...
2013-08-131h 17
Monster in a GlassEpisode 6: What IS a Martini? – The MartiniThe Martini is another one of those cocktails that is legendary in the world of classic cocktails. It's so major that the glass it is served in is a symbolic archetype for cocktail round the world. That's huge. Many other drinks try to borrow some of that presence through -tini association. The problem is that it's kind of hard to figure out just what a Martini is. As Jason unfolded the story of the Martini we tried to figure out what it was that makes the Martini so special and the more we explored the more trouble we had...
2013-08-121h 14
Monster in a GlassEpisode 5: Margaritaville – The MargaritaThe first thing I learned about this cocktail is that when you tell the story of the Margarita you have to tell the story of tequila. Because tequila was virtually unheard of prior to the 1930s, there are no mixed drinks using it in the time period when most cocktails would earn their classification as classics. The first form of tequila is the beverage pulque, derived from the mashed and fermented maguey plant that grows only in Mexico. The tradition of making pulque is pre-Columbian and nearer its origin the drink was used in spiritual rites by priests and m...
2013-08-091h 41
Monster in a GlassEpisode 4: Taken for a Ride – SidecarThis episode was really great to create. There is a ton of post WWI information that we learned and some surprising technological developments we learned of from that time. But not only that, we had a lot of fun and tried a really great, truly classic cocktail. Jason nailed the origins of this drink pretty succinctly. This drink is often attributed to Paris barman Harry McElhone, as he was essentially the "bartender of the Lost Generation." This is an American GI post-WWI cocktail, and it is well known that many Lost Generation cocktails came out of Harry's New York Bar...
2013-08-081h 16
Monster in a GlassEpisode 3: Meet Tom Collins – The Tom CollinsThe Tom Collins got me. The Tom Collins is another one of the old classics that is still around today and because it has been around so long...the history has become muddled and essentially lost. Jason found the earliest recorded instance of the recipe was a version in Australia called the John Collins. Now, traditionally there is a difference between the John Collins, made with Holland gin, and the Tom Collins, made with Old Tom gin, but that distinction gets lost over time. The combination of gin, lemon juice and sugar, though, has been around a long time an...
2013-08-071h 04
Monster in a GlassEpisode 2: The Big Guns – French 75I think this episode is a great example of what we mean when we say “…history through cocktails”. It would be easy to think that every cocktail origin story is precise and worthy of storytime. As it turns out, we’re pretty excited when we discover a cocktail that is directly and causally correlated to a particular event. Most cocktails might be created in honor of a person or thing, but just as often cocktails get their names from common expressions, icons or ideas. When there isn’t a story to go with the drink, we instead look at the people, pl...
2013-07-3058 min
Monster in a GlassEpisode 1:The Manhattan Project – Manhattans We're kicking off the series with the cocktail that I think of as THE cocktail of cocktails...the Manhattan. At the front of the show, Mr. Jason Kruse, our researcher, and I sat and discussed what he discovered while tracking down the origins of the Manhattan. First of all, the Manhattan's claim to fame as the longest unchanged cocktail stands up to the available information. The first version we found is, in fact, the same version served today. Though it has been played with and changed by various bartenders over the years, particularly in its heyday in the late 19...
2012-07-291h 31