mixology, the history of , stretches back to antiquity, encompassing things such as the Homeric kykeōn, wine mixed with grated goat cheese and barley; the combination of wine, beer, and mead whose residue was found in the tomb of King Midas in central Anatolia; the various medicated wines described by Scribonius Largus, the Roman emperor Claudius’s physician; and medieval wine drinks such as the highly spiced hippocras and beer drinks such as the bitter Purl. Modern mixology, however, begins with the rise to popularity of distilled spirits, which gave the art a new urgency. As the Italian physician Michele Savonarola observed in the 1440s, “For some, to take this ‘water’ even in small quantities is difficult and unpleasant, for which one may mix wine or some other liquid with it.” He recommends mixing one part spirits with three parts wine, or if not wine, then water or even beer. This was the first recorded mixed drink based on spirits.
The ultimate development of this “pop-in,” as the English would come to call it, came in the form of fortified wines, which had the added advantage of keeping longer and standing up to shipping better than the unfortified wines of the day. See fortified wines. But it also opened the door to a vast array of mixed drinks. The first people that we know walked through that door did so in India. India had its own, independent version of pop-in, such as the mix of equal parts palm or Bengal arrack and wine, of which the Mughal emperor Jahangir (1569–1627) drank six cups a day (and that was when he was behaving). See arrack. Sometime between 1600 and 1630, when the first unambiguous description of it was recorded, English merchants in India began drinking a mixture of local arrack, water, citrus juice, and sugar, presumably in equal parts. Spices could also be added, and often were. As “punch,” this drink would in one way or another lay the foundation for all of modern mixology. See punch.
Punch introduced the basic principles of balance that would govern the art of mixing drinks with spirits from then on: sweet versus sour, strong versus weak, spicy versus subtle, stimulating versus refreshing. As with the Martini and many other drinks at the very top of the cocktail pantheon, there was more than one way to balance punch: an excess of citrus, for example, could be made up for with more sugar, but it could also be corrected by adding more water; a deficiency of arrack or whatever other spirit you were using (it worked well with most) could be fixed by splashing in some wine, and so on.
Milk Punch. In the Americas, rum was the spirit, and limes were often the citrus; in Ireland and Scotland, whisky would come to fuel the drink, which would be generally served hot, with the citrus cut back to lemon peel alone.Up to this point, punch making was rather a “pro-am” affair, with drinkers often mixing their own, even in punch houses (the ingredients would be brought to the table, and they would have at it). In 1731, however, James Ashley (1698–1776) began serving punch in any quantity desired, from a small “tiff” to a large bowl, at his London Punch House near St. Paul’s. He—or rather, his chief barkeeper, Mrs. Gaywood (perhaps Catherine Gaywood, 1708–1775), and the young women who served under her—would assemble the drink in front of the guest, so that the quality of the ingredients could be assured. This was the beginning of modern, mixological bartending: individually portioned drinks mixed to order in front of the guest. See Ashley, James.
By the late eighteenth century, punch had finally jumped the English Channel. In France, it was the province of the limonadiers, professional sweet- and iced-beverage makers, usually of Italian extraction, who treated the drink prismatically, with each of its main components split among several ingredients. Thus, for instance, the sweet element might be supplied by sugar, capillaire syrup, and orange curaçao. See capillaire and curaçao. But that curaçao would also contribute to the citrus element and the spirituous element, blending the colors of the rainbow, as it were. This bedrock principle of mixology was already implicit in Wooley’s Punch, with the wine splitting the difference between the spirituous and the aqueous elements, but in the hands of the limonadiers it reached a new level of sophistication. See Regent’s Punch.
Meanwhile, in America barkeeping was becoming an increasingly male affair, particularly after independence. There the status of barkeeper was relatively high, particularly in the new towns where taverns served as focal points for settlement, and that pulled men in. At the same time, there was also significant African American representation behind the bar, both free and enslaved. Indeed, America’s first famous professional mixologist, Othello Pollard (1758–ca. 1838), of Philadelphia and Boston, was a free African American whose Ice Punch and erudite newspaper advertisements caused a sensation at the turn of the nineteenth century. Yet we have very little information from the period on American bartenders and their work; it was only when European travelers made much of it in the 1820s and 1830s that Americans began to pay attention. Although, for instance, we know iced Mint Juleps were being served at the Wig Wam Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1807, we do not know the bartender’s name or anything about him—or her. See julep.
Fancy Drinks
That use of ice was fast becoming the trademark of American mixology, along with an expanded range of drinks mixed to order: most, such as the julep, the sling, and the Cock-Tail, could—much like punch—be seen with various subtractions or substitutions for the citrus, but there were also (less punch-like) eggnogs and a number of other, more original drinks. See Cock-Tail; Eggnog; ice, history of its use; and sling. To be a successful bartender in a city such as New York, Boston, or New Orleans, one had to master a number of drinks from different regions of the country, which were coalescing into an American school of drinking. In New York City, bartenders such as Cato Alexander, an African American freedman; Orsamus Willard, a Yankee from rural Massachusetts; and Martha King Niblo (1802–1851), daughter of a porterhouse keeper, began to cement the foundations of the American school of mixing drinks. Drinks would be mixed to order with ice, in front of the customer, and with a show of energy and dexterity (indeed, Willard was ambidextrous). See
The other shoe dropped in the 1830s, when the Hailstorm Julep, a recent specialty of Virginia, spread to the big cities of the Northeast. Where ordinary juleps used a lump or two of ice, this packed the glass with it, smashed to a fine, gelid powder. Prismatic mixology was in full force as rich wines and fragrant rum floats supplemented the brandy that was the standard julep spirit at the time, and in the hands of a Virginia master such as the enslaved Jim Cook (ca. 1808–1870) or the freedman Jasper Crouch, the whole impression of the drink was one of unbridled luxury (indeed, Cook and his partner would make juleps for the prince of Wales when he visited Richmond on his 1860 American tour). See Crouch, Jasper. By the 1840s, that luxury had become the norm in American drinking: every town of any size had at least one bar that made iced “fancy drinks.” The El Dorado in San Francisco, the leading bar there during the first stage of the Gold Rush, used a golden muddler to mix its drinks (it was stolen in 1851). In 1862, Jerry Thomas, who had perhaps worked at the El Dorado, published the first bartender’s guide. See Thomas, Jeremiah P. “Jerry”.
European Developments
At the same time, this new American mixology began making its way over to Europe. Europe, of course, had its own ideas about mixology and its own drinks. The British had their punch and their cups and bowls (wine-based light punches of German inspiration). The Germans had “Bowlen” and a whole series of what are essentially shooters: short, un-iced mixtures of spirits, bitters, and liqueurs (the Dutch had their own versions). The French had their coffee-and-brandy “Mazagran,” and the Italians had a wide range of café drinks—things such as the “Scottum” and the “Se Sa Minga” of Milano. See coffee drinks. But Italian mixology was back-room mixology, where the liquorista premixed and bottled the various creations in advance and merely poured them out over the bar.
American-style bars, such as the Café Leblond in Paris and Van Winkle’s in London, catered largely to American expatriates, although Leblond did have a clientele among Paris’s bohemian class. American drinks made little progress toward general acceptance in Europe. When the Neapolitans were introduced to the cocktail shaker, their first impulse was to use it for coffee. Meanwhile, in the 1860s one European product filtered back to America and dropped into American mixology like the keystone does into an arch: vermouth. A fairly low-proof beverage that had the texture of a spirit, vermouth made for complex, layered cocktails that were also simple. See Manhattan Cocktail and Martini. At the same time, a significant part of the massive wave of German immigration that reached America during the middle of the century washed up behind the bar, bringing with it the palette of liqueurs, bitters, and syrups that had characterized German mixology. See Schmidt, William.
The Manhattan, the Martini, and their ilk revolutionized American mixology in the 1880s, spawning literally hundreds of variations and thrusting the cocktail to the fore as the standard-bearer for American drinking. In Europe, however, they were developing their own version of the American bar, which kept the Yankee trappings but had its own range of drinks. “Long drinks” were more important than cocktails, and mixologists such as Charley Paul of London made their livings acting American but mixing English. See Criterion and Engel, Leo. Then a Neapolitan who had perhaps worked for Jerry Thomas briefly in New York turned the wheel. In the 1890s, Ciro Capozzi’s little bar in Monte Carlo attracted perhaps the most exclusive clientele of any in the world, with the nobility of Europe gathering to sip unpretentious, New York–style cocktails and dine on impeccable London grill food. When Ciro’s opened in Paris, London, and then Berlin, the American cocktail’s work was done. It was what sophisticated people drank wherever they gathered, and Prohibition, the Great Depression, and two world wars did nothing to change that. See cocktail; Coleman, Ada; and Savoy Hotel’s American Bar.
This cocktail-forward mixology absorbed all influences. Citrus drinks became cocktails, not punches or sours. See Bronx Cocktail; Daiquiri; and Sidecar. The 1930s, however, saw both the cocktail encompass new spirits—vodka, tequila—and a counter-school arise, going garish where the cocktail was elegant, complex where the cocktail was simple, rustic where the cocktail was urban. This was the tiki craze, movement, alternative reality—whatever you wish to call it. See
Meanwhile, the mainstream cocktail culture was struggling. After those twentieth-century shocks, it ended up being narrowly focused on just a few drinks. The Dry Martini was by far the most important of them. Bartenders and drinkers patrolled the boundaries of the drink, narrowing them obsessively. Meanwhile, more and more people wandered off, drinking dubious things such as the Margarita (what is tequila, anyway?) and the Negroni (it’s red!) and paying no attention to the traditions of the bar. See Margarita and Negroni. The big break came in the 1960s, when a new canon of drinks deposed the moribund old order. The new drinks were silly, sweet, simple, colorful, and unintimidating. They had no baggage and no rules. See Bourbon Street drinks; Calimotxo; Harvey Wallbanger; Lemon Drop; Paloma; and Long Island Iced Tea.
But this new canon—disco drinks, many called them—made for a bar culture that was ultimately unsatisfying. The drinks were things you drank while doing something else, and to break the snootiness and narrow thinking of the “Happiness is a Dry Martini” school of mixology, many people felt that too much had been sacrificed: complexity, balance, elegance, contemplation. With the rise of the internet, these people were able to talk to each other, and by the early 2000s, they had spawned a movement. Its principles, or rather its likes and dislikes, were fairly straightforward: keep the nontraditional bartenders (lots of women behind the bar since the 1970s) and the gender-inclusive bars. Keep the creativity that had spawned, for instance, thousands of new shooters. See shooter. But reach back to before Prohibition to grab hold of the tradition and the craft off mixing drinks—the emphasis on quality ingredients and skilled execution. Surprisingly, it worked. See cocktail renaissance.
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Savonarola, Michele. Libretto de aqua ardente. In I trattati in volgare della peste e dell’ acqua ardente, ed. Luigi Belloni, 92. Rome: Società Italiana di Medicina Interna, 1953.
“Stolen.” Daily Alta California, January 25, 1851, 3.
Wondrich, David. Imbibe!, 2nd ed. New York: Perigee, 2015.
Wondrich, David. “The Lost African-American Bartenders Who Created the Cocktail.” Daily Beast, March 7, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-lost-african-american-bartenders-who-created-the-cocktail (accessed May 13, 2021).
Wondrich, David. Punch, New York: Perigee, 2010.
Wondrich, David. “Why Did It Take America So Long to Have Female Bartenders?” Daily Beast, March 13, 2018. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-did-it-take-america-so-long-to-have-female-bartenders (accessed May 13, 2021).
Wooley, Hannah. The Queene-Like Closet. London: 1670.
By: David Wondrich