Bartenders before the mid 19th century did not have to worry about straining ice out of their cocktails, because there was no ice in cocktails. It was now possible to get the same cocktail in San Francisco or New York prepared the same way. In 1862, Jerry Thomas released the Bartender’s Guide, with recipes and set standards. Bartenders were making a name for themselves by dressing up and putting on a show while making a cocktail. They went from seedy and hidden areas to well-respected and classy environments. Late 19th and early 20th century innovationsĪs the country sped to the end of the century, two major shifts happened in the bar world: The first was the bar becoming a gathering hotspot. If it was a high end establishment, they may have had a citrus reamer. It was thinner than a muddler, with the added benefit of being able to stir the drink with the other end. All a bartender needed was a knife, a reamer for juicing, and the precursor to a muddler - the toddy stick. The bartender’s kit was a simple affair in the early part of the 19th century. People would make a large vat of it and serve it until it ran out, then make a new batch. At the time, most beverages were created that way, including coffee.
This is mostly because they were punches, created in large quantities. There were no real tools of the trade when cocktails were first being mixed. Most of the innovation in cocktail gear was formalized by the late 1890s, and the bartending world has not changed it much - with some exceptions. Most of the equipment that famous 19th century bartender Jerry Thomas used to make the cocktails in the Bar-Tender’s Guide are still included in even the most cutting edge cocktail books. Unless you are walking into the back room of the Aviary in Chicago or New York, or Scout in London, you are going to see a setup that has not evolved much since the 19th century. But stepping behind the bar to make a cocktail is a different story. The time has come that even craft beer pubs are likely to l have a variety of glasses to consume your beer of choice. From breaking down large format punches into single servings to utilizing the culinary magic of chefs, we have seen the way we consume spirits continuously evolve - even the glassware we consume it from has evolved. Those two centuries have seen incredible changes in the way we enjoy a tipple. It has been over two-hundred years since the term “cocktail” hit the American lexicon.
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