What’s In A Name - Or, why I think you should add 3 Bottle Bar to your collection

In my last blog, I mentioned a book by H.i. Williams, 3 Bottle Bar.

Let me begin by saying that I have always had a fascination with oddities in names - quirks in the spelling, why people have the names they have, or where names originated.

Thirty years ago, I met a woman, now long passed, named Voltarine. She spelled her name as I have written it.  Not having encountered that name previously, I asked her if the name had a family history.  Those of you well read, and interested in feminist studies, are probably thinking “She must have been named after Voltairine de Cleyre, feminist writer and orator, and her parents misspelled her name.”  Not so.  Voltarine explained that her parents were enthusiasts of Voltaire and thought that Voltarine would be the feminine derivative of his name.

I am terrible with names, even those of people I know well.  At the store a few weeks ago I ran into a nurse that I had recently worked with for five years. I repeatedly called her “Kathy” (the name of an RN I hadn’t worked with in 15 years) instead of Marianne. She did not correct me and it didn’t dawn on me until I had gotten home. I still remember Voltarine Williams’ full name, because of her little story, though we met but twice.

On another occasion, when employed as lead nurse in a pediatric clinic, I was attending to a mother whose sons were named Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. When I asked if she liked Italian art, she gave me a puzzled look.  I then explained that I was curious about the names of her sons.  As you have probably guessed, she had named them after the Ninja Turtles.

In the hospital, and clinics, where a large part of the patient population spoke only Spanish, I made my name a private pun.  Some Spanish speakers have difficulty with the name “Charles.”  Knowing this, and since I conversed with these patients in passable medical Spanish, I would introduce myself as Carlos Madera – a literal translation of my given name.  For a time, it caused some confusion among co-workers when I was asked for by that name.

Back to the book and the name of interest.  The first thing I noticed about 3 Bottle Bar was the curious spelling of the authors name on the fly leaf.  Initials capital “H.” lower case “i.” Surely there had to be a story.  I was correct.  H.i. Williams was born Harney Isham Williams in Ladoga, Indiana, 1886.  In his youth, his friends took to calling him “Hi.”  This name stuck and he used it throughout his life in both a personal, and professional, capacity.  “Hi” is certainly an easier handle to remember than “Harney” or “Isham” and conveys a friendly nature.

His book, 3 Bottle Bar - Hospitality Poured From 3 Bottles, published in 1943, is a rather thin book on mixology. A mere 64 pages, with 26 personally created recipes. You might overlook it as a potential addition to your collection.  The drinks aren’t bad and it is an easy to find out-of-print book, on eBay or Amazon, for less than $15 in hardback.

In 3 Bottle Bar, Hi talks about only needing three bottles of liquor to make most drinks requested by guests - whiskey, gin, and dry white wine (which he substitutes for vermouth). In the section entitled Afterthoughts, he relents and says that it would be OK to expand to a 5 bottle bar, adding rum and scotch if desired.  In the course of his book, like most other authors of the genre, he offers suggestions on how to best prepare a drink, requirements for a bar, and related trivia.  I like his less than elitist attitude regarding liquors.  Discussing “whiskey,” he does not mean bourbon or rye. He suggests using whichever whiskey you enjoy.

You may be thinking, “Meh, doesn’t sound like much to bother with.”  There is more. 

A large part of the pleasure of using a vintage drink book, or a favorite cookbook, is that the handful of paper is a tangible link in a chain to the the past.  A link not only to those who used that book, but to the author who wrote it.  While H.i. Williams appears to be merely the writer of a mildly entertaining bar book, he was so much more. To quote the foreward to 3 Bottle Bar:

In earlier years, he relied on drawing as his medium, and he did well with it; painting followed, and he did well with it, too. Currently photography is his choice, and his colorful compositions, which are reproduced in millions of magazines each month, have identified H.i. Williams as one of the foremost photographers in America.

H.i. Williams career spanned 50 years.  He was renown for his contribution to the “food as fashion” movement of the 1930’s. This influenced advertising art as we know it today. He was much sought after for his ability to create engaging, brightly colored commercial photographs of food.

A graduate of the Cincinnati Academy of Art, he earned reputation as a sculptor and artist.  In 1919, he moved on to New York and became a commercial photograper in the 1920s.  Williams shot iconic compositions for many companies including Fiestaware and Fleishmanns Yeast. Pillsbury used his images in their advertising and on cake mix boxes. Examples of his work are in many homes today.  If you look, you may have some, too.

  

Prior to the 1930s, images in cookbooks were hand drawn, sometimes hand colored, but more often, lifeless black and white photos.

Do you remember your mothers, or grandmothers, cookbooks of the 1930s, 40s and 50s?  Sprinkled with pages of brightly colored, full bleed images, of food perfectly prepared, appearing as it should when served at the family table?  These were added to give the cookbooks a bit of dash and appeal to homemakers.  Much of that color imagery was provided by “H.i.” or his disciples.

Williams was a perfectionist. He had a test kitchen with a staff that included professional cooks and bakers. Meats and fish were professionally cut so that the end product would look flawless. One anecdote alleges he would have his staff go through 20 boxes of crackers to find those that were “pristine.”

Creating his compositions was time consuming.  He would first meticulously arrange the layout, when it was completed to his satisfaction, he would discard and replace anything that was damaged or had lost its’ look of freshness.  Only then would he photograph the result.

I have a friend, Mark, who likes to say, regarding selling, that “it is the sizzle that sells the bacon.”  Well, H.i. Williams put the sizzle in food advertising and cookbooks. For this, he was recognized world-wide, and virtually every professional photography magazine of the 1940’s and 1950’s featured interviews as well as articles about his work and techniques.

The photographic process Williams favored to make food appear life-like is known as the trichrome carbro.  Carbro is short for carbon and bromide. The trichrome carbro is very time intensive. Taking 80, or more, steps, it is said that a person working a 40 hour week could complete about twelve of these photographs.

The trichrome carbro process requires three negatives taken utilizing red, green, and blue filters.  These negatives are then transferred to pigmented gelatin sheets which when developed, are then layered. Registration has to be perfect to achieve the final color image.  While this is a very quick and dirty explanation, the results are impressive. There are many articles online that explain the process more completely.

3 Bottle Bar, is a book by a creative genius of the advertising age whose influence is wide spread. As a link to a bit of modern history, the text is an item of drink related arcana worthy of your attention.

From 3 Bottle Bar, the drink of the day is the Carbro. A drink by  H.i. Williams, with a name of his choosing that we can now understand and appreciate.

The Jeep

It recently came to my attention that this is 73^rd anniversary of the US Army’s issuance of a request for proposals that culminated in the manufacture of the venerable jeep.  This brought back personal memories, as well as an opportunity to mention a forgotten cocktail that did not achieve the fame of its namesake.

As a young man, I passed through a stage of life in which I was enamored of 4 wheel drive vehicles, particularly “jeeps”. 

I had always liked old pick-up trucks.  My first love was a green, two-wheel drive, 1951 Dodge truck, fresh from a farm. This truck came complete with “three on the tree,” half-moon hubcaps, bald snow tires, a rotted out wood bed and rust in the running boards and fenders.  It did have a working radio and heater.  What could be better than that?  Only something as reliable, as sexy as a sow, and with 4 wheel drive – obviously a Jeep!

The military variants of the jeep are no more closely related to the modern civilian toys than the Wright brothers Flyer 1 is to a Boeing 777.  The basic construction, power train, and hardware were incredibly simple and lent themselves to easy maintenance and field expedient repairs. 

On one occasion, when the fuel pump failed on an M38A1, I rode 20 miles on a dirt road in the Gila Wilderness, sitting on the cowl, while pouring gas into the carburetor.  After removing the windshield, a friend drove while I poured the gas from a canteen cup, into an improvised aluminum foil funnel that was wrapped around a piece of rubber tubing.  The tubing was jammed onto the carburetor fuel line, which we had bent upward.  The other passenger refilled my canteen cup from a 5 gallon jerry can sans spout. Gasoline was splashed everywhere.  When we finally got to civilization, I had a pretty good chemical dermatitis on my hands and torso, and smelled like a refinery.  I don’t recommend trying this at home, as it was clearly a case of God protecting “fools, lovers and drunkards.” Unfortunately, we were the former rather than the latter.

My unrequited lust for a 4WD vehicle was turned into reality by my father-in-law, Al.  When I told Al that I would like to buy a jeep from a surplus yard in El Paso, but was short the money and mechanical talent to restore it, he offered up the needed funds and the mechanical know-how.  Al was a retired Army mechanic who had been raised on a poor farm in Michigan.   Though a functional illiterate, he could fabricate, restore, or otherwise return to life damn near anything.  While a difficult person, his “can do” belief that everything broken could be fixed, and that everything needed can be made or found, augmented by a staunch refusal to accept otherwise, is still a wonder.  This life lesson has stood me well, and I have tried to pass it on to my children.

The first jeep we rebuilt was a 1955 Willys M170 Frontline Ambulance.  

It had a Hurricane F-head engine with an accursed Carter YF carburetor, a T-90 3-speed transmission (which I had to tear down and rebuild a second time after finding an omitted synchronizer ring in a rag), Dana transfer case and axles, and a super heavy duty suspension since the jeep was designed to handle a driver, passenger, and three litters.  Best of all, it had features that would make any vehicle a dream.  Ample storage compartments in both wheel wells and under the passenger jump seat, canvas covered wheel well bench cushions, which along with the front seats that were resistant to foul weather. The passenger jump seat could be hung from a bar on the dash to make room for a third stretcher – or camping gear, and the spare tire was carried vertically in a wheel well next to the passenger.  All this, plus it still had the original military paint and insignia. It was as if all my adolescent dreams had come true.

Recollections of the M170 are bittersweet.  

It was rebuilt the year we were married, and I spent more time with my father-in-law building the jeep, than with my wife—something she has reminded me many times over the last four decades.  I was oblivious to everything except the jeep project.

From the first, the M170 was so much more useful than the 1964 VW that it had replaced.  Once, parked in a dirt lot, I returned from class and found my “jeep” hemmed in on all sides.  No problem!  I engaged the 4 wheel drive and pushed the car in front of me out of the way so that I could leave. 

Yes, I was a jerk. 

The following year I went into the Army and the M170 stayed with us. We struggled through a blizzard in Raton Pass to get to my first duty station, Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, Denver Colorado.  Later, it easily, albeit slowly climbed the mostly dirt and gravel road up Pikes Peak, while newer automobiles sat overheated at the side of the road.  I fondly recall watching my very pregnant wife, in the short dresses of the early 70’s, stepping high over the spare tire to get to the jump seat and, on a later trip, complaining about oil dripping from the oil pressure sending unit onto her stockings (imagine a time when women wore stockings everywhere, even in a jeep!).  I told her, quite seriously, that it was “clean oil.”  A very poorly received comment. Young men can be such boors.

Serving in the military, vehicle parts were amazingly easy for an enterprising soldier to acquire – Korean War vintage run-flat tires from Rocky Mountain Arsenal, fuel, oil and water pumps from sundry Army Reserve units, assorted parts as needed from military cannibalization points, and litters from the hospital (the litters were also our first bed, until we could afford used furniture, at my next duty station).  It was a first rate vehicle, fit to pass any inspection. When it broke down, it was usually a minor problem that, with what I had learned from Al, was repairable with basic tools and bruised knuckles.  The most persistent, and annoying, problems were vapor lock and a sticking carburetor float.

The last trip we made in the M170 was truly epic.  Keep in mind this was our family car, not a beater used for hunting and fishing.  In 1973, on a two week leave, we travelled from San Antonio, Texas to New York City, by way of Jacksonville, Florida, then back.  We started with $50 cash and a gas credit card.  This would be a journey of over 3800 miles.  I planned to drive long days and minimize expenses by staying with relatives along the way.

Now, for those of you driving those pimp-mobiles that pass for a modern Jeep, the drive may sound a little long, but not particularly difficult.  Try it in hot weather, without air conditioning but with engine heat radiating through the firewall, an incredibly stiff suspension - not so wonderful now, run-flat tires so hard you felt every pebble in the asphalt, a top speed of 55 mph – the very definition of “getting nowhere fast”, hard rubberized horse hair seats which, by the end of the day,  felt like sitting on sandbags, a 6 month old child in a bassinet, and a German wife ready to point out any shortcomings I might have missed. Also, there was no radio to break the monotony or drown out heat and fatigue inspired tirades.  Trip safety planning meant taking my 9mm FN Hi-power, a fire extinguisher, an extra fuel pump, water pump, and oil pump, and a few hand tools.  Seat belts and air bags were not part of the picture. Thinking about it still makes me tired.

The trip was a series of minor adventures. Somewhere outside Houma, Louisiana we broke down.  It was a simple problem, once found.  A loose distributor ground, repaired with a minimum of snarling.  My main memory of Houma is the suffocating heat.  It was hotter than the hinges of Hades and the humidity had to be 110%. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, we were rear ended by a lady driving an Olds 88, slightly damaging our left rear quarter panel.  We ran out of gas in Quincy, Florida late at night. I hitched a ride to a gas station, with some teenagers, while my wife and child stayed in the car.  My spouse remembers that night slightly differently. She recalls being alone and afraid, in the dark, with the baby.  Days later, safely arriving in New York, we were just in time for rush hour traffic. My wife was incredibly tense and annoying as a “backseat driver.” I felt great driving the only cool vehicle on the road in New York City.  No lack of hubris in that other me of long ago.

Ultimately, this trip was the death knell of the M170.  Getting home, we were all tired and sore.  I could barely tolerate having to use the jeep to go to work at Brooke Army Medical Center.  Within weeks of returning, I sold the M170 to a fellow sergeant for $400, along with plenty of spare parts and GI manuals so generously provided by Uncle Sam.  Sadly, when sold, I told him that I thought the oil pump was failing and to install one of the spares.  Lazier than even I, he failed to do so and, ignoring the oil pressure gauge, seized up the engine two weeks later. While the M170 was followed by a Jeep Commando and two M38A1’s, none were so loved, nor so traveled, but all have their stories.

The drink I choose to pair with this blog, is called “The Jeep.” It comes from the 3 Bottle Bar by H.i. Williams, 1943. No, the little “i” in the second initial is not a typo. Born Harney Isham Williams, he went by “H.i.” in credits, or when he signed his name.

The drink, the author says, is “Designed for rough sledding, the Jeep has a three power drive with a pick up robust enough to pull even the weariest wayfarer out of the deepest rut.”

My wife and I find the drink quite tasty. 

In older bar books, when gin was not otherwise specified as "dry," "Plymouth" or "Holland," an Old Tom was the choice inferred.  Old Tom gins, sweeter and generally milder tasting, are harder to find now, but very pleasant to the palate in a mixed drink or cocktail.  I used Brothers Old Tom Gin, made here in New Mexico by the Left Turn Distillery of Albuquerque. For “whiskey”, I used Old Overholt rye, an American classic, as I personally find rye whiskey more pleasant and less “boozey” in mixed drinks.  The wine was a nice, inexpensive, California Beringer Chenin Blanc. The juice came from two tiny Cutie oranges. Cheers!