Monster In A Glass Reanimator

New #MiaG #Reanimator featuring the #Michelada where Doug describes the creation by an engineer at the sports club bar after a night of drinking. Also, origins of beer cocktails and German beer tradition in Mexico.

Here is another #MiaG #Reanimator revealing the #history of the #ArnaudsSpecialCocktail where we seal the deal in describing how not special this #cocktail was and Doug describes his first hand account of going to Arnaud Cazanave's restaurant in New Orleans

#MiaG researcher Doug Stailey does a deep dive into distant #history of the #MintJulep and takes us right up to where we recognize the drink in its current form. Plus the role of Charles Dickens in the rise of the the American #cocktail

In the original Monster in a Glass episode Jay tells us the origin of the #Stinger name is a mispronunciation/misunderstanding of a Southeast Asian term. Doug reveals that story is a common misconception and the drink likely got named after a jab in boxing. Plus we see the Vanderbilts once again.

This episode discusses both a delicious #cocktail and a cautionary tale of living the playboy lifestyle of the early 20th century through the story of Erskine Gwynne, a member of the Vanderbilt family who was life of the party until it led to slow decline, failure and death. So much fun!

The #Knickerbocker is an early beverage coming before the #cocktail craze and joining with the oyster bar craze that popped up in the US and England in the early 1800s. Doug describes an American entrepreneur turning an entertainment venue into a popular oyster bar which garnered attention from temperance figures for the cocktails they served with their seafood.

Doug tells the story of the #ParkAvenue #cocktail, including a red herring version, but then goes into the origins of Park Avenue and how it distinguished itself in the late 19th to early 20th centuries and discusses all of the mayhem of civil engineering back then.

Another New Orleans #cocktail episode where we learn a bit about Henry Ramos and his career getting a start and creating a name for himself in Baton Rouge and solidifying his hold in cocktail #history with this beverage that doubles as performance.

The #Vesper is one of those rare instances when art made a drink rather than the other way around. Featured in Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel Casino Royale it survived the cocktail slump in the 70s to grace craft #cocktail menus throughout the most recent cocktail revival

In this #MonsterInAGlass #Reanimator #CorpseReviver Doug says it was considered a general pick-me-up kind of drink, not just a party rejuvenator like we discussed in the original. We also do a deeper dive into Lillet and why it tastes like new car smell

In this episode of #MonsterInAGlass #Reanimator we explore the origins of the #Cosmopolitan, the first episode where many of the players in the story are still alive. Who is the personality behind this flamboyant pink #cocktail and why is it so contentious? Doug says it's a matter of convergence; Cameron says the stakes are high so the competition is fierce regardless of how history is revealed

In this #MonsterInAGlass #Reanimator Doug traces the path of the #BloodAndSand from Hollywood boutique drink in London to a tiki classic out of Singapore...and you can find the strangest things on Reddit these days.

In this episode Doug reveals the contentious history of Drambuie and how the #RustyNail was yet another #cocktail popularized by its appearance in a novel and Cameron is shocked by fraudulent sweepstakes of the 70s.

We've identified a trend now of literary people putting together cocktail books. Not unlike Satan's Whiskers, Doug finds a new literary circle that published their own cocktail book featuring new batch beverages to make for cocktail parties at home and the Calvados Cocktail

The #RobRoy is Doug's first foray into cocktail history blogging and in this episode he talks about what new information has come out since 2014 infused by David Wondrich and he tells the story of Duke Calabritti whose restaurant would become famous for serving the first Rob Roy #cocktail

So according to Doug it was the Lord Mayor of London who made the #PimmsCup for HIS seafood restaurant and a drunk driving case makes the drink popular in the United States.

Revisiting the episode on the #Amarosa cocktail wherein Doug discusses extinct spirits, the history and business of the Cora brothers, and is still thwarted in trying to find the elusive H. Losappio

Apparently the #HankyPanky was created within a toxic workplace environment. Doug reveals the bitter feud between Aida Coleman and Ruth Burgess at the Savoy hotel bar and how Harry Craddock used it to his advantage.

Where Temperence drinks cross the Royal British Navy, the #HorsesNeck started as ginger ale and a fancy lemon peel garnish...clearly it was begging to have something high octane and brown added to it. Also, is your bartender reusing your garnish?

Doug reveals that our original episode for the Satan's Whiskers has the earliest origin story than any other yet tracked and that Harry Craddock scooped this drink from a little known publication out of London along with Hugo Ensslin's drinks and many others. And we take a peek into the lives of some leading publishers at the time.

Doug describes the earliest references to #PinkGin's forebear the Gin Pahit, used as a digestiv for the heavy East Asian cuisine and then popularized in literature of the early 20th century.

Doug explains the role of vodka culturally starting in Russia to France and creeping into America to create the Bloody Mary...which likely is not an American innovation. Also a deep dive into tomato juice and how long canned tomato juice was a product on grocery store shelves.

While the Singapore Sling was born of a traditional beverage recast in the east, it's history is now known to be propaganda created by a hotel owner in Singapore. Doug describes the historical path of this elusive drink, how its ingredients and name shifted over time on its journey to land in America as a tiki favorite.

Doug sets the record straight on the Algonquin cocktail detailing how there were actually two separate drinks, one possibly named for the Algonquin Club and the other possibly named for the Algonquin Hotel and then some travels Along the Wine Trail.

In this episode Cameron extols the virtues of the Alamagoozlum cocktail while he also learns from Doug that the word was also commonly attributed to crude oil and became the name of an oil boom town in Pennsylvania. Also, J.P. Morgan starts a club.

Follow the evolution of the Navy Grog from its fundamental useful recipe to a high octane premier drink at popular mid 20th century Tiki bars in the US.

Doug tells the tale of Count Camilo Negroni, the aristocratic young adventurer who discovered drinking American style and brought it back to his homeland to turn an Italian favorite into a legend.

Doug discusses the actual story behind the Sazerac including the original recipe that many would call blasphemy.

Doug discusses the evolution of the drink as technology and styling for champagne changed over the course of the 18th century

Not so much different revealed to the story except dialing in on the Kingsport, TN origin story and hearing about the colorful characters involved and how Doug theorizes they are responsible the the Betty Crocker red herrings.

Despite the presence of vodka prior to the Moscow Mule, the Moscow Mule really is the story of the rise of vodka in American cocktail culture. Doug nails down the transition of vodka to the American market and how the Moscow Mule prepared vodka for it's popular role in the 60s and 70s to today.

Reexamining the origins of the cocktail, what was the difference between the old fashioned and the new fangled back in 1883, and what made cocktails a real hit

Doug shares with us a little more about the American attributed to bringing the daiquiri to the US and we learn that Ernest Hemingway was drinking his daiquiris frozen. Blender technology is much older than I expected.

Revisiting the Monster In A Glass Cuba Libre episode Doug turns the common history over on its head describing how the common bullshit history surrounding the rum and coke wasn't really a possibility and how evidence for the beverage isn't available until much later than the reported original story.

Doug and Cameron revisit Monster In A Glass podcast episode 8 revealing the origins of the concept of the Aviation cocktail, the trouble with purple drinks and the sad story of a sad artist that was very sad

Doug tells us about the amazing Lachlan Rose and how he insinuated himself into the British Navy's good graces and how the Gimlet cocktail became a popular phenomenon at the Grand Hotel in Beijing.

We review the old Monster In A Glass podcast Martini episode with Doug Stailey who shares an interesting new possibility for the origins of the drink with a fantastic story from the time as well as a theory why the Martini lost its vermouth in the early 1900s

Picking up where the Monster In A Glass podcast left off, Doug Stailey discusses how tequila worked its way into American and European markets and how that ultimately led to the recipe and name for the drink we call the Margarita

Revisiting the Sidecar where we hear a few more stories including a new one featuring the barflies at the bar that will be known as Harry's New York Bar in Paris. Also a look to the crusta aspect of the drink. Did we turn the history on its head? Not quite but we added more possibilities to the story and fleshed out more of the characters we will revisit as the podcast continues.

Reviewing Monster In A Glass podcast episode 3 on the Tom Collins with Douglas Stailey where he discusses the origins of the Tom Collins including proto-Tom Collins, the earliest alcoholic beverages with soda water, and the emergence of cocktail mixers.

Doug Stailey does a deep dive into the French 75 to reexamine what the Monster in a Glass podcast described ten years ago. Yes, there is a whole lot more to the story than what we knew then involving the previous owners of the New York Bar in Paris as well as a comedy author charged with revitalizing old mags past their prime and printing cocktail recipes during Prohibition.

Manhattan Projections: Exploring the Origins of a Classic CocktailPosted on February 3, 2024 by libationlegacyMy friend Cam Marceau, of the Monster in a Glass podcast, has invited me to join him in revisiting his old episodes, starting with the first, on the subject of the Manhattan Cocktail and it’s history. I used to take part in this programs towards the end of it’s run, but missed out on its early days. Listening to this first show from 2012, which features Cam along with his researcher Jason Kruse, I should note that it remains factually very accurate, and I can only agree with what they turned up back then. However, in the intervening years, more digital resources have become available, and I can add to and enhance their original findings.Poring through several digital archives of newspapers, books and other documents, the first mention of the Manhattan Cocktail comes from an article which was syndicated in several newspapers. The earliest publication date for it that I’ve turned up was August 31, 1882. in the Lyndon (Kansas) Leader, under the headline “Gotham Gossip”. There is no ambiguity here, the author states plainly that “It is but a short time ago that a mixture of whisky, vermouth and bitters came into vogue. It went under various names–Manhattan cocktail and Turf Club cocktail. Bartenders at first were sorely puzzled as to what was wanted when it was demanded. But now they are fully cognizant of its various aliases and no difficulty is encountered.”I can confirm that there is no earlier mention of the Manhattan in any of my many sources, and also that after this first reference, it was discussed more and more with each passing year. So this gives us a fairly clear starting point. If the author is to be believed, and given they clarity of his statement I see no reason for doubt, the Manhattan was invented shortly before 1882, with enough lead time for it to have become more widely known.But despite this claim, the drink itself did not show up in any recipe books until 1884. Monster in a Glass identifies two of these books, O. H. Byron’s “The Modern Bartender’s Guide” and George Winter’s “How to Mix Drinks”. I have since discovered a third such book from the same year, which also lists a recipe for the Manhattan. The author is unknown, but the volume is amusingly titled “Scientific Bar-Keeping”. Published by a distiller, E. N. Cook & Company, the copyright was held by Jos. W. Gibson. But the Jos. W. Gibson Company was a publishing firm, so most likely they were simply the ones responsible for production.Before we get to the recipes, I should clarify the nineteenth century terminology they employ, which can be confusing. The wineglass was a two-ounce measure according to the apothecary system of measurements, which was in common use by doctors and other compounders in the 1880s. This is corroborated in several sources, for example Sir Robert Christison’s “A Dispensatory, or Commentary on the Pharmacopoeias of Great Britain” (1842), and in the U.S., Clara Weeks-Shaw’s “A Text-Book of Nursing” (1898). A pony is generally considered to be one ounce.Dry Martinis called for French vermouth, which was the generic term for dry vermouth, while Italian vermouth was used in Sweet Martinis, and would have been a Torino-style red variety. If “vermouth” is used without a qualifier, it would have been the Italian variety, since dry vermouth was rare before the 1890s.Per most contemporary recipes for it, gum syrup usually did not contain any actual gum, and was the general term for simple syrup. With these facts to go on, the following prescriptions should be more or less intelligible.“The Modern Bartenders Guide” provides two versions:Manhattan Cocktail No. 11 pony French vermouth.1/2 pony whisky.3 or 4 dashes Angostura bitters.3 dashes gum syrup.Manhattan Cocktail No. 22 dashes Curacoa. [sic, meaning Orange Curacao]2 dashes Angostura bitters.1/2 wine-glass whisky.1/2 wine-glass Italian vermouth.Fine ice; stir well and strain into a cocktail glass.The second of these is very close to the one I favor today, except I use a 2:1 whiskey/vermouth ratio. Cointreau can be substituted for the Orange Curacao, if you don’t have any.“How to Mix Drinks” includes this take:Two or three dashes of Peruvian Bitters;One to two dashes of gum syrup;One-half wine glass of whiskey;One-half wine glass of Vermouth;Fill glass three-quarters full of fine shaved ice, mix well with a spoon, strain in fancy cocktail glass and serve.Peruvian bitters would most likely have been quinine-based, since cinchona bark was well known to have come from Peru.Finally, “Scientific Bar-Keeping” mixes theirs like so:2 or 3 dashes of gum syrup; 2 or 3 dashes of bitters; 1 wine glass of Italian vermouth; one wine glass of whisky. Fill the glass with ice; shake well; strain into a cocktail glass; squeeze the juice of lemon rind and serve.This is the only one of the three that recommends shaking the Manhattan. Those crazy scientists! It’s also the only one which recommends a twist of lemon peel.No cherry in any of these, of course. My research on the maraschino cherry for The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails reveals that those didn’t make it to America until 1885, and were unknown here at the time that the Manhattan was invented. The cherry starts to show up at the end of the 1880s, and on March 15, 1891, The Kansas City Times ran an article headlined “A Cherry in Your Cocktail,” in which a bartender relates:‘A Manhattan cocktail?’ queried the expert, in answer to this interpolation between his fluent sentences. ‘And not too sweet!’ Ah yes, great drink, that! One moment! There; the lemon stills it, you know! A cherry in your cocktail, of course! We all have to do that now. Just where or when it started I can’t say. But talk about style! Some one of the first class places did it; and we all had to do it.Another Manhattan Cocktail mystery concerns where the drink was invented. As Monster in a Glass points out, it was often attributed to the Manhattan Club, a political club in New York affiliated with the Democratic Party. While we still can’t be certain, several of my sources support this claim. An article in the Sag Harbor Corrector, published April 29, 1893, and entitled “Manhattan Club Cocktails,” starts off with the statement that “The popular Manhattan Cocktail is an invention of the Manhattan Club of N.Y. City, which by the by, has invented more famous drinks than any other place in the country.”On the other hand, in July 14th, 1920, the New York Times published and article about the recent sale of the Hotel Manhattan, located at the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and 42nd Street. The new owners auctioned off practically everything in the building, in 15,000 lots, described by the Times as “the largest sale of its kind ever attempted in this city.” The article goes on to say “Though brisk bidding for the Manhattan bar and its fixtures is not anticipated, the final passing of the native bar of the Manhattan cocktail is expected to attract many an enthusiast.”This claim that the Hotel Manhattan was the birthplace of the Manhattan Cocktail caused many an eyebrow to raise, and it was not long before it was challenged in another newspaper. Two days later, the New York Evening Telegram included their take, under the headline “Where the Manhattan Cocktail Began.” This article quotes the passage from the Times, then drolly puts forward the following, in the style of a congressional resolution:Whereas, the Manhattan cocktail was invented at the Manhattan Club, Fifteenth street and Fifth avenue, in the middle eighties; and,Whereas, it was consecrated soon after by a reference to it in a comedy in which Mr. Le Moyne appeared, at the old Lyceum Theatre, at Fourth avenue and Twenty-fourth street; and,Whereas, the Manhattan Hotel was built many years later, in the nineties; and,Whereas, the Fifth avenue, the Hoffman House and countless other bars were as much “the native lair of the Manhattan cocktail” as the Manhattan Hotel; therefore, be itResolved. That the corroborative detail supplied by the New York Times is an example of gross exaggeration, if not pure ignorance.This rebuttal was correct about the age of the Manhattan Hotel, it was constructed in 1895 through 1896, and could in no way be the provenance of the Manhattan. It also generated feedback from their readership, so much so that on July 20th, the Evening Telegram ran a follow-up which included some letters to the editor, under the headline “More Light on Ancient New York History.” Quoting from this:An expert correspondent, well known to New Yorkers when the Union Club, the Hoffman House, the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the Albemarle and