The Hoffman House hotel’s bar in New York, on then-fashionable Madison Square, enjoyed an international reputation as the city’s, and hence quite possibly the world’s, finest drinking establishment. Between 1883 and its final closing in 1911, to drink there was to rub elbows with a dazzling crowd of Broadway swells, high-living sporting men, and celebrities of every type, from William Randolph Hearst to Buffalo Bill Cody.
To have tended bar at the Hoffman House was enough to set a man up in his own saloon or qualify him to work at any bar in the world; among its many alumni were Frank Meier and Harry Craddock, along with a remarkable number of bartenders of local prominence in New York. See Meier, Frank; and Craddock, Harry Lawson. The bar was considered one of New York’s temples of mixology, and its employees invented a great many drinks of their own. Few of these, however, achieved lasting popularity (the Adonis, with sherry and vermouth, is probably the best known of them). See Bamboo Cocktail. nonetheless, the bar was instrumental in popularizing many classic drinks, including the fizz, the Martini (in both its sweet and dry incarnations), and the Collins. See fizz; Martini; and Collins.
The Hoffman House opened in 1864. For its first eighteen years, the bar was well regarded, but not in the city’s first rank. Its first head bartender, Fred Eberlin, saw much greater success when he left to open his own bar in 1872. See Daisy. His successor, Frederick Loud, ran things quietly for the next ten years. Then, in 1881, Cassius H. Read, the hotel’s owner, brought in a partner, placing him in charge of the bar. Edward S. Stokes (1841–1901) was notorious for shooting the ruthless financier James “Big Jim” Fisk to death on the steps of the Grand Central hotel in 1872, but he also knew what it took to make an impression.
In 1882, when the bar reopened after Stokes’s extensive renovation, it caused a sensation. “There is nothing cheap here,” wrote the New York correspondent for the Cleveland Leader, “and few kings have taken their toddy in better quarters.” The windows were stained glass; the bar and the wall-paneling were all carved mahogany—“no shoddy and no veneering”—and the mosaic floor was marble. The walls were hung with paintings, including a Turner, a Narcissus shakily attributed to Correggio, and the bar’s centerpiece, the immense The sixteen bartenders were led by Joseph McKone, who had a wide reputation as the handsomest in the city; William F. “Billy” Mulhall (1858–1941), who was (as the New York Herald put it) “good at making whiskey sours”; and John F. Irish, who would go on to run the famous bar at the Manhattan Club. See Manhattan Cocktail. After McKone and Irish moved on, Mulhall came into his own. By 1887, as the Evening World reported, he had gained a reputation as “the most proficient artist in his line in the metropolis.” Two years later, when Stokes opened a branch of the bar downtown, Mulhall was in charge, his position at the Madison Square bar being taken by Billy Dugay, another fine mixologist. Besides mixed drinks, the bar offered such rarities as American rye whisky bottled in 1826 and “an old Hennessy more than fifty years in bottle,” as Mulhall later recalled. This cost a dollar a drink, an unheard-of price at the time. Despite its popularity, the bar and hotel fell into financial difficulties in the mid-1890s. As part of a renovation aimed at restoring the hotel’s fortunes, in 1896 the bar was closed, replaced by a smaller one in the building’s new annex. Gone were the paintings, the statues, the suits of armor, and other objets d’art, and gone, soon, was Stokes. With the new bar came a new head bartender, Charley Mahoney (1858–1923), an alumnus of Clark’s, a “blatant, flagrant and unblushing” Tenderloin dive, and a thoroughgoing sporting man. Under his tutelage, the bar regained its popularity, although its clientele ran more to high-stakes gamblers than dignitaries. Indeed, Mahoney was as famous for being a stakeholder for large bets as he was for mixing drinks. He was, however, one of the popularizers of the Dry Martini (under the name “Mahoney Cocktail”) and, in 1905, published the seminal Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide, with a notable number of unique recipes, including the excellent Modern Cocktail. In 1910, with the hotel faltering, Mahoney retired and was replaced in his role as bar manager and host by the popular Jim Gray, formerly of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. See Gray, “Colonel” Jim. The hotel closed the next year and was torn down for development soon after. It lived on in the city’s culture for several decades more, however, as the ultimate example of the fancy New York bar. “A Palace of Sin.” Jamestown (NY) Evening Journal, August 29, 1883. De Fontain, F. G. The Hoffman House: Its Attractions. New York: Edward S. Stokes, 1895. “Fine Fancies in Drinks.” New York Evening World, October 10, 1887 4. Mahoney, Charles S. The Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide. New York: Richard K. Fox, 1905. Mulhall, William F. “The Golden Age of Booze.” In Valentine’s Manual of Old New York, 126–135. New York: Valentine’s Manual, 1923. By: David Wondrich Charles Mahoney at the bar of the Hoffman House, 1905. Wondrich Collection.
Charles Mahoney at the bar of the Hoffman House, 1905. Source: Wondrich Collection.