Head Barkeeper’s Drink List 1911 A Window into a Pre-Prohibition Hotel Bar

 

While looking for something to do around the house and not really wanting to do anything, I was sorting books and came across an envelope with a piece of pre-Prohibition mixology ephemera I had purchased on a whim and then forgotten. Thinking it would be better to mount it on an acid free board and mat rather than leaving it in a battered envelope, it became that day’s task, giving me a chance to use some of my left-over supplies from when photography had been a hobby. 

The roughly 11.25”x17.5” poster’s letterhead reads “Mack Latz, Hotel Alamac, Atlantic City, 1911”

 

 In the advertising of the day, the popular Hotel Alamac, in Atlantic City, was “Plumb on the Boardwalk” and claimed to be the only hotel with its own pier. The hotels name came from combining the first names of the couple who owned it, Mack and Allah Latz.  According to a ladies magazine article of the period Allah, Mack’s wife, managed the hotel. Since Mack was regarded as a respected businessman, it seems likely he would have been something equivalent to a CEO.

 Beneath the letterhead, the document is titled “Head Barkeeper’s Drink List” with the admonition “To be posted at back of bar.”  The poster is printed on a lightweight paper, showing its age with small tears, chips and staining.  Intended as an aid for hotel barkeeps, there are short, specific instructions for the preparation and serving of 88 libations listed in alphabetical order.  The drinks are all old standards with the exception of the “Alamac Special,” a drink seemingly absent from bar books I could consult.  A similar drink in cocktail form appears in Meier’s 1936 Artistry of Mixing Drinks as the Maple Leaf.  Today’s Apple Jack Sour is very similar to the original Almanac Special.

 Prices are absent and the print size small, making it unlikely bar patrons would be able to read it.  At the end of the list there are house rules including “Ladies may not stand at the Bar” and that “Drinks must not be given or sold to anyone on the Jag List”.

 While keeping ladies from standing at the bar is amusing, though not surprising considering the era, the “Jag list” is worthy of note. At first, I assumed it was the drunkard equivalent of the unofficial list we kept in the Emergency Room, many pre-politically correct years ago, of drug seeking “frequent flyers.”  Not so, it was much more complicated than that.

According to the American Dictionary and Cyclopedia of 1896,

 “To have a jag on” was slang for “being in a state of partial intoxication: the idea being that when a man is fully intoxicated he has a load, but that when he is only partly intoxicated he has on only a jag.”

By the early 1900’s there are mentions of mayors, judges and others having jag lists of  “those to whom liquor may not be sold.” These were not merely unofficial lists. They were required by laws responding to drunkenness. For example, a New York Times article of 1915, said that East Orange, New Jersey

 “…is going to have a jag list.  Men who are addicted to drink and are constantly giving their families and police trouble, are to have their names pasted up on all licensed liquor places, and the owners and their employees are to be instructed to refuse them drink of any kind.  In the event of their failure to comply with this command they will be subject to a fine.”

 Other jurisdictions went even further by pulling and refusing liquor licenses to establishments that failed to meet “jag list” laws.  In Hazelton, Pennsylvania it was reported that

“Liquor dealers asked that the city furnish them with photographs of those in the habit of “taking a wee drop too much,” on the “jag list” in other words, so that they may recognize them, and help in stopping the practice.”

The house rules in the Head Barkeeper’s Drink List also specify the bars operating hours, which must
have been regulated by Atlantic City codes. It states “Bar doors must be closed at 11:50 Saturday night.  Bar lights out at 12 sharp.  Bar opens Sunday night 12 o’clock for one hour.” That one hour between 2400 and 0100 must certainly have been interesting.

 I have searched for copies of this poster and cannot find any other examples.  Alas, it seems unique, leaving one other question, the date of actual publication. The printing information in the bottom right corner is chipped and reads

 “This list reprinted November 8, 19 (paper missing) by Milton Latz, Knife and Fork Inn, Atlantic and Pacific Aves., Atlantic City, N (paper missing) 25 Cents a Copy.

 
The Knife & Fork Inn, in addition to having been a popular restaurant, had also been a speak-easy during Prohibition. After being raided and its liquor supplies confiscated, it was taken over in 1927 by Milton Latz, Mack Latz’s brother. Since Latz ownership of the inn dates to 1927, this document would appear to be a Prohibition era souvenir tribute to the “Good Old Days” printed in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s.  In any case, it is still a window into a pre-Prohibition hotel bar.

Ghoulish Stories, Requiems, Corpse Revivers, and Zombies, Oh My!

With Halloween creeping upon us and with ghoulish movies and TV shows coming to the fore, I thought I would start with some real-life stories and finish with aptly named drinks.

Looking at the not so horrifying “horror” stories from my life, there were several candidates, and all appear wanting for various reasons.  I imagine that many of you, upon reflection, could do as well or better.

War stories were the low hanging fruit.  My father, a combat veteran of WWII and Vietnam, told many tales.  Once he spoke of being in charge of a detail in the Philippines, during the closing days of WWII, whose duty was to exhume soldiers, recently and hastily buried, for return to their families.  A grisly task.  Protective equipment consisted of gas masks – his worst wartime experience and too grim to expand upon.

Next I considered sharing something "scary" of my own – like a failed attempt at first aid at the scene of a stabbing - steak knife through the carotid, definitely DRT "Dead Right There" (not to be confused with CTD "Circling the Drain") – again too grim. 

Seeking a lighter side, I trod the murky corners of my brain for other experiences.

I once worked as a night security guard in a medical complex in San Antonio, Texas.  At twilight, in a dark and deserted medical building, I was checking locks on doors. Finding one unlocked, I entered to check the office.  Immediately in front of me was a skeleton.  I will admit to being briefly startled – story too short and too dull.

Then there are the cemeteries I have visited, a must wherever I travel.  I have always said that cemeteries are people at their best – everyone getting along without regard for race, color, creed, or politics.  There are great cemeteries, large and small, all over the north and south.  In the southwest, many appear a

bit plain, but often have a stark beauty of their own.  At one clinic, in a dusty, dreary community, I would occasionally go to the nearby cemetery and eat lunch under the trees.  Very peaceful and the permanent residents were excellent luncheon companions.  No ghosts, noises or other signs of haunting – so a poor story.

Alternatively, while employed in a hospital, I became adept at placing the deceased into body bags by myself.  If that sounds easy, try it with a large individual, whose body is all "loosey-goosey," not stiff as a post, laying on a stretcher.  After "bagging and tagging," I would take them to the "green room," our morgue, which was actually painted blue.  To move the body through the hospital without disturbing the sensibilities of patients and visitors, we had a special gurney.  It had a metal lower shelf to place the body upon and an upper frame that was flat.  A large white, form-fitted drape was put over the top, giving the gurney the appearance of a rolling banquet table.  While prepping the body, bagging, and transporting to the morgue, I kept up a monologue with the deceased.  I spoke of events precipitating demise, visitors if any, where we were going and how we would get there.  After placing the departed upon a shelf, with others, I extended my best wishes and left.  None of my charges ever replied, or called upon me later – so that is a story of that takes the "long way around the barn" to be mundane.

Then there was the Halloween party with the theme "come as your favorite doctor or patient."  The most memorable costume was that of a nurse who came dressed in a body bag as one of our "frequent flyers" who finally managed to buy the proverbial farm.  Stories like that are too tasteless for lay people, and unless you have worked in an ER, law enforcement, or similar field, you will not understand the need to laugh at otherwise grim affairs.

Having established that "real-life" death is unfit for human consumption (but O.K. for zombies?); let us have some fun with drinks with death themes.

The first drink is "The Requiem."  Now for you non-Catholics out there, a Requiem or Requiem Mass, is a prayer service for the dead.  Its name comes from the opening line of the mass “Requiem aeternam dona eis" or "grant them rest forever..."  From the Requiem we also get "Requiescant in pace,"  “May they rest in peace” – the familiar R.I.P. on tombstones. The Requiem we are interested in is from The Flowing Bowl, 1898, by Willie Schmidt. It is a tasty mixed drink, rather like eggnog. The only addition to the recipe that I would recommend is a dash of nutmeg on top.

Following the Requiem, it is only natural to use a "Corpse Reviver" to get those synapses firing and animate our burned out, lifeless bodies.

By 1861, the Corpse Reviver was deemed "a celebrated drink."  A creation of the London Haymarket district, it was billed as an American drink.  In fact, about 1878 the famous bartender/author Jerry Thomas mocked the purveyors of liquor around Charing Cross for selling English drinks as American drinks.  He went on to say that he was about to open an American bar in London "and show the Britishers what's what. Then there'll be no need to brew bogus Yankee drinks!"

Recipes courtesy Boothby's World Drinks, 1934

Now that we have had our Requiem, and our Corpse Reviver, it seems appropriate to follow with the “Zombie.”  I have no interest in the flesh-eating ghouls of modern television and cinema.  Everyone growing up in the 1950's knows that a "real" zombie is merely a person, living or dead, under the control of a voodoo priest or priestess.  No flesh eating, no rotting body parts, pretty much a boring minion of the possessor. 

My preferred zombie, that of the "classic" black and white movies of the 1930’s, is indeed the only genuine zombie, so a pox on the rest of you.  As proof, I offer a Life magazine article.  We are cognizant that anything printed in a major periodical by reputable authors must be true – why else would anyone read the Sun or the Mirror?  In December of 1937, Life magazine did an article entitled "Black Haiti: Where Old Africa and the New World Meet."  Included is a photo by to "Zora Neale Hurston, Negro author with a Guggenheim scholarship…" and described as "the only zombie ever photographed." According to the author, the person/zombie died (or was drugged into a coma) and buried in 1907, returning "naked and demented" to her fathers farm in 1916. From the photo, she is clearly not decomposing or shedding body parts.  Indeed, with her unkempt appearance and her blank stare, she looks like the zombies in those classic movies.  Prima facie evidence that the old zombies my generation knew are the only genuine zombies.

As to the drink, the “Zombie” was the invention of Donn "the Beachcomber" Beach, who created it in the 1930's. Originally, it was sold no more than two to a customer.  Its claim to fame lies in its potency.  I can testify to this.  In my youth, when so many of us have manure for brains, I ill advisedly downed a dozen in a chug-a-lug contest in Juarez, Mexico, after an evening of drinking.  Fortunately, I did not drive nor ended up in a hospital.  After trying to pick a fight with a group of soldiers, it was the sickest night of my life (the cabrito burritos probably did not help) and I gave up any sort of drinking for almost five years.

The "Zombie," like so many drinks, has metastasized into many versions over the years.  I have chosen a version "from the land down under" – Australia, courtesy of The Australian Bartender's Guide, Stebben & Corsar, 1990. While not the most elaborate of Zombies, it is one easily made in the home bar and I would suggest no more than one to a customer.  In addition, the Juarez Zombies were blue, so if you want a 1960’s South of the Border version, substitute blue curacao.

Enjoy your Halloween celebrations and, please, remember "If you drink, don't drive."

Belly Up to the Bar

Thanks to eBay, Amazon, AbeBooks, and COAS - my local used bookstore, I have a collection of 90+ books related to Drink, ranging from Willie Schmidts' 1892 treatise The Flowing Bowl to recent works such as To Have And Have Another by Phillip Greene.

Here in southern New Mexico, drinking is largely Bud, in its various forms, and margaritas. Hardly more interesting, probably less so, than in the 60's when I frequented the Kentucky Club and Freds' Rainbow Bar in Juarez, Mexico. At least the drinks were cheap, the Mexican beer good, and the 50 cent sandwiches at Freds' took care of the munchies. The pursuit of engaging bar books, and mixing mostly forgotten drinks from the past, is a nice way to add something special to an ordinary day and an opportunity to share thoughts, and drinks with you.

Several of my books are German, dating from 1905 to 1920. A favorite is the Lexikon Der Getranke (Encyclopedia of Drinks)1913, by Leybold & Schönfeld, fellows of the Internationalen Barkeepers-Union, Cöln.  The Lexikon is a 296 page compendium  of  drinks and vintage advertisements for booze, bars, and purveyors to the trade.  The recipes include American, German, and European mixed drinks.

Of special interest, is the section labeled “Regiment-Mischungen” (Regimental Mixtures).  Comprised of  23 pages listing regimental “mixtures,” there are 181 drinks alone for infantry regiments.  Every possible organization seems to be mentioned. Do you fancy yourself in a tchapka sipping the traditional drink of the 3^rd Prussian Uhlans, or have just finished your model railroad layout and want to celebrate your success with the drink the Eisenbahner (railway men) toasted with?  Lexikon Der Getranke has the answer.

While, in my opinion, a great book, there are a couple of burrs under the saddle. The units of measure can be odd, and some of the ingredients have disappeared or are difficult to obtain.

The measures in this book may drive you to drink, or perhaps to a modern English cocktail book that will not have you grinding your teeth. The recipes vary from the simple ratio measurements still used today, to the more esoteric measures of an era long past.  Like many vintage tomes dedicated to mixology, German books seem to be notoriously poor in defining the unit volume of a measure. When asked to add a Likörglas, or Portweinglas, how much liquor do you use? Today, you cannot even get oenophiles to agree on the size, or shape, of a port glass. 

Apparently, these measures were once more precise than simply grabbing a small, or not so small, glass.  In the Handbuch Der Krankenphlege (Handbook for the Sickroom), 1904,  and other references, I have found some measures used in cocktail books of the day, along with their corresponding volumes. The measures below may be helpful to those of us easily confused and confounded.

  

Vintage German-English Measurement Equivalents
Measure	Volume		Measure	Volume
Likörglas (liqueur glass)	30ml		Limonadenglas (Lemonade glass)	220ml
Portweinglas (Port wine glass)	40ml		Flasche (bottle or flask)	30ml – 1 L. Content dependent
Moccatasse (Demitasse cup)	50ml		schuß	a splash, or dash
Weinglas (Wine glass)	125ml		Essloeffel or Eβlöffel or EL	15ml (about 1 level Tbsp)
mittlere Tasse  (Medium cup)	150ml		Kinderlöffel (Childs spoon)	10ml
gewöhnliche Tasse (Ordinary cup)	200ml		Teelöffel or Teeloeffel or Teel. or T	5ml (about 1 level tsp)
Wasserglas (Water glass)	0.4l		Messerspitze (Knife tip)	1/8 tsp or 1 pinch
Portionstasse (Serving cup)	0.3l

Many, if not all, of the liquors and other ingredients are still available, or have modern analogs, that will make a passable drink.  The problem lies in figuring out what the odd ingredient is so that you can make an appropriate substitute. Fortunately, we have the internet and appreciate the fact that all, that is truthful and worth knowing, is there. 

Need to top a glass with Sauerbrunn? Easy.  Sauerbrunn is a naturally carbonated mineral water from the Tyrol.  Do you live somewhere, as I do, where choice of mineral water is bottled tap water or Perrier & S. Pelligrino?  Quietly slip in your favorite carbonated mineral water.  The bubbles don’t care how they got there and you can choose the one most agreeable to your palate. 

Stuck on Stoughton’s?  Those bitters have been off the market since Hector was a pup.  San Francisco Bitters makes something that is alledgely close.  There are all sorts of recipes for Stoughton’s out there purporting to be correct, some in books of the time, though nobody living is old enough to remember the original.  The quick solution is to simply grab your Angostura or Peychaud’s.  You will have just brought a dusty antique to the 21^st century.  These suggestions are heresy to some cocktail cognecenti but, as a layman of potable potions and a back-sliding Baptist, I have done far worse.

Having made it this far, it would be abject cruelty to close this blog without offering a tasty drink. Being summer, a "cooler" seems most appropriate. From Lexikon, the Luftshiff, or Airship.

Luftshiff

In a lemonade (8oz.) glass, add some fresh peppermint leaves, the juice of 1/4 lemon,    and 1 1/2 oz. Rye whiskey. Add ice to half full and fill with ginger ale.  Garnish with fruit and peppermint leaves. Note: I find the drink improved if, after adding lemon and rye, you muddle the mint leaves. The first drink goes down quickly, plan on a second. Sehr gut!