Some Like It Hot (Toddy)

Let me start by disabusing you of any thought that this blog post will have anything to do with a great Marilyn Monroe movie, or that sexy "ice cream blonde" of yesteryear - Thelma Todd aka "Hot Toddy." Rather, since the weather is turning chilly, we are going to talk about a couple of traditional hot drinks. Those pics are a great hook though, aren't they?

The first, and one of my favorites is Hot Gin, a drink with a considerable history dating to the 1700's (by 1825 "piss-quick" was established in English slang for gin and water). Medically, hot gin was was prescribed for dozens of ailments. Considered a stimulant during the day, a drink to "promote repose" in the evening, and a treatment for cholera.  Into the 1890's, a hot gin was considered appropriate for female "pelvic complaints" such as dysmenorrhea - used to such a degree that the medical journal Lancet expressed concern that hot gin was contributing to alcoholism amongst women.

Hot gin is also featured in English literature, making several appearances in works by authors as prominent as Charles Dickens.  In Oliver Twist, Fagin gives Oliver a hot gin after his  first meal with the artful Dodger, and the gang, to put him to sleep.  Later, Mr. Bumble, on seeing a newspaper item regarding Oliver, dashes off "...actually in his excitement" leaving his evening "glass of hot gin and water untasted."  Criminal waste!

Traditional recipes for Hot Gin vary only slightly and I enjoy them all.  If you have a favorite gin, use it.  If not, use whatever is handy.

The earliest recipe employs water, hot or cold - "Hot acts the quickest" per an early 1800’s writer, in a 2:1 ratio.  This was nicknamed “soap-suds” or, as previously mentioned, “piss-quick.” 

A more genteel and tasty drink is the Hot Gin Sling.  Put one spoon of sugar in a hot drink glass, or cup, fill half way (about 4 ounces) with hot water, add a jigger of gin, stir, add a piece of bruised lemon peel and dust with nutmeg.

Toss in a couple of cloves and a bit of allspice, and you now have a Hot Spiced Gin.

To make a Hot Gin Punch (my preferred variant) add the juice of 1/4 lemon, and a thin slice of lemon to the basic Hot Gin Sling recipe.

The gin drinks above are essentially a gin "toddy." Today a toddy, or "tottie", is nothing more than spirits mixed with hot water, sugar, and spices or flavoring to taste. Spirits, water (hot or cold), and sugar were the basic toddy of yore.

We primarily think of a toddy as using whiskey - bourbon, rye, scotch, or Canadian, will do.  Traditionally, after a hospitable dinner, a host would bring a kettle of hot water to the table, along with assorted spirits such as whiskey, brandy, rum, and port, allowing the guests to mix "toddies" to their taste.  Tumblers and wine glasses were the glassware of choice In the home.

Like hot gin, the hot toddy was considered to be of medicinal value.  It was recommended for the treatment of colds (including those of children), gout, and heat stroke.

A stanza from a "dramatic" poem penned by Irish dramatist John O'Keefe in 1790 seems more a limerick today - "cannon loud 'gainst cannon ranting; At his gun, poor Jack see panting; As to lip he lifts the Toddy; Off flies head and down drops body."

Widely appreciated, the toddy was enjoyed by notables as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Mark Twain.  A drink that wears its years well, continues to be popular today, and is perfect for that quiet evening at home.

Black Box Warning - In the 1790's for those preaching temperance, just as marijuana was regarded the gateway drug by do-goods of my generation, the toddy was regarded a the gateway drink to alcoholism in theirs.  The evening toddy was said to lead to "drams in the morning, and afterward (drinkers) have paid their lives as the price of their folly."

Having been warned, tempt fate and try a toddy this evening by substituting your favorite spirit, including flavored ones, for the gin in the recipes above and changing the name accordingly.  The Hot Gin Punch becomes a Hot Rum Punch or Hot Whiskey Punch. Too strong? Titrate the water to your taste. Too sweet, or not sweet enough---adjust your sugar.  If you like cinnamon sticks or vanilla beans, use them.

The Hot Gin and the Toddy are "old as the hills" and some of the easiest to personalize.

Book of Toasts, Autrim, 1902

What’s In A Name – The Florodora

I have missed two blogs since my last due to familial obligations and found myself today casting about for a theme to get me back on track.  Since I have an interest in the origin of drinks, and their names, I thought I would borrow from a previous effort and use the title “What’s In A Name” with the related drink(s) appended.  If this works, I may do more in the future.

In the early 1900's, preceded by the operettas of the 1880's, the American public became enamored with musical comedy.  The play Floradora receives much of the credit for this craze.  A popular play in England in 1899, Florodora opened in the Casino Theater of New York in 1900.  

The play involves the imaginary island of Florodora on which a perfume of the same name is made.  Said island was stolen from its rightful owner whose daughter still works in a factory on the island.  The rest of the plot is convoluted to the extreme but the cast, chorus line, and music seem to have compensated successfully.  A feature of the theater was a manikin in the lobby spraying “La Flor de Florodora” on the theatergoers.

After a slow initial start, publicists started promoting the play in a manner seen repeated by the movie studios in their heyday.  TV news coverage of the Kardashians pales to that given the Florodora troupe.  Newspapers featured daily stories about the cast members, their personal lives, how well they regarded one another and worked together, their romances and marriage prospects, and of the huge sums of money that the chorus girls were making by speculating on Wall Street.  To the latter, one has to wonder if their fiduciary success was due more to the stage door sugar daddies than Wall Street, but maybe I have seen too many old movies.  Ultimately, Florodora exceeded 500 performances.

Florodora was the first  musical comedy to use the device of “stunning” fashionable evening gowns, worn by attractive women, to create a memorable high point in a performance, a trend continued in the Follies of the 1920’s and 30’s.  Women would go to see the latest fashions, men to see attractively dressed women. 

At the time, the music was considered “bewitching,” and people were often heard humming or whistling the tunes.  Leslie Stuart, the composer, said his formula for writing the music of Florodora was to:

“…take one memory of Christy Minstrels, let it simmer in the brain for twenty years.  Add slowly for the music an organist’s practice in arranging Gregorian chants for the Roman Catholic Church.  Mix well and serve with a half dozen pretty girls and an equal number of well-dressed men.”

The original “Florodora sextette” or the “big six,” none over 5’4”, was so popular with the American public that chorus girls for years afterwards, claimed to have been part of the original sextette. Francis Belmont, an original “sextetter,” in true movie showgirl fashion, managed to marry an English duke.

Florodora, its music, and its stars were immensely popular in the early 1900's.  Like movie related marketing today, the musical comedy became linked to a variety of products.  A soft drink in Cuba, race horses and pedigreed dogs, assorted food products, china, dolls, cigars (“three for 10 cents”) and a hybrid long staple cotton named Florodora were but a few.  Having a fondness for ice cream, one of my favorites is the “Florodora Sundae” – 1 banana, strawberry ice cream, strawberry fruit, nuts, and whipped cream.

In 1920, there was a revival of Florodora, with more chorus girls, and more lavish costumes and staging.  It was so popular that Fannie Brice was inspired to do a parody in the Follies.

Riding its second wave of popularity, it once again gave advertisers a useful marketing hook.  Florodora actresses modeled veils in Cosmopolitan magazine.  A massage vibrator was advertised to help women achieve “Florodora” beauty and sponsored a Florodora beauty contest.  Use of “Florodora” in marketing persisted into the 1930’s, as both a product name, and as a derogatory expression for something passé from a previous era.  There was also a movie entitled “The Florodora Girl.”

In my books, there are at least three "Florodora" related recipes.  The first two, the Florodora cocktail and the Florodora Fizz, from a 1913 text, are the earliest recipes I have found.  The Florodora Fizz definitely predates the book. 

A 1902 advertising magazine, The Advisor, states “The Florodora Fizz has replaced the Ping Pong Punch as the fashionable drink of the season.”  

The Florodora Cooler, easiest for the home bar, is from a publication of the 1930’s.  It is probably a Prohibition era drink being gin based, its other ingredients doing well to make the “bathtub” gins of the Roaring Twenties more palatable.