Imbibe!

by David Wondrich

  After Williams’s novel, the next we hear of the Daisy is in the 1876 supplement to Jerry Thomas’s book, where its formula reveals it to be a Sour—with brandy, whiskey, gin, or rum—that is sweetened in part with orange cordial, strained, and fizzed. The only way that this differs from the book’s Fizzes is in those “2 or 3 dashes of orange cordial.” But Thomas’s book doesn’t tell the whole story. Where the Fizz went on to become a staple of bar-drinking, in some hands the Daisy—one hears most often of the Brandy Daisy, but the Whiskey and Gin versions also turn up from time to time—evolved into something of a dude’s drink, a little bit of fanciness that came empinkened with grenadine and decanted into some sort of recherché, ice-filled goblet or mug and tricked out with fruit and whatever else was in the garnish-tray. By the time Prohibition rolled around, both kinds—the old, orange liqueur-up kind and the newer, grenadine-rocks kind, were in circulation.

  It’s worth going into this much detail about the Daisy because of something that happened in Mexico while the Great Experiment was running its course in el Norte. First off, in 1929 or thereabouts, the new American-financed gambling and golf resort at Agua Caliente, outside Tijuana, introduced its house cocktail, the “Sunrise Tequila.” Tequila. Lime juice. Grenadine. A little creme de cassis. Ice. Soda. In other words, a tequila Daisy, modern type. Second, a little after repeal, journalists and other travelers who visited Mexico started talking about a “Tequila Daisy,” and in 1936 this even pops up north of the border, in Syracuse, New York, of all places. Unfortunately, nobody bothers to record which kind of Daisy they’re drinking, the old-school one, which was often served in Cocktail glasses with only a minimal amount of fizz, or the new-school one, like Agua Caliente’s Sunrise. This is important because of the Spanish word for “daisy.” If they were drinking them old-school, you see, they were drinking tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice (much more common than lemon in Mexico), and maybe a little splash of soda—and ordering them as “margaritas.”

  BRANDY, GIN, WHISKEY, OR RUM DAISY (OLD SCHOOL)

  The original Daisy of the 1870s.

  (USE SMALL BAR-GLASS.)

  3 OR 4 DASHES [1 TSP] GUM SYRUP

  2 OR 3 DASHES [1½ TSP] ORANGE CORDIAL

  THE JUICE OF HALF A LEMON

  1 SMALL WINEGLASS [2 OZ] OF [SPIRITS]

  Fill glass half full of shaved ice.

  Shake well and strain into a glass, and fill up with Seltzer water from a syphon.

  SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1876 (COMPOSITE)

  NOTES ON INGREDIENTS: Jerry Thomas made all his Daisies according to the same pattern; for the orange cordial, I like to use Grand Marnier. Whoever it was that revised his book, however, recommended varying the cordial according to the spirit used, calling for maraschino with rum (specifically Santa Cruz) and gin (Hollands), with orgeat syrup replacing the gum in the latter. With whiskey, there’s no cordial at all, but again orgeat steps in for the gum. Other mixologists liked other cordials; Harry Johnson, for example, was particularly fond of yellow Chartreuse in a Daisy, although he used an awful lot of it: ½ ounce, on top of ½ tablespoon of sugar, and all to balance out 2 or 3 dashes of lemon juice.

  In Jerry Thomas’s Daisies, anyway, the cordial is intended as an accent, not as the main sweetener. As always, the precise amounts will be a matter of taste.

  Thomas’s reviser suggests finishing the Brandy Daisy with “2 dashes of Jamaica rum.” Rum with brandy? You bet.

  By the way, the term small wineglass appears to be a reaction to the obsolescence of that measure; within a few years recipe writers would be claiming that a wineglass was 4 ounces (by then they were measuring spirits in 2-ounce jiggers, just to be safe).

  NOTES ON EXECUTION: The big question here is what kind of glass to put the thing into. In 1876, it would have been the standard small bar-glass. In 1887, the guy who revised Thomas’s book has his strained into a “large cocktail glass.” Others went for a Fizz glass, a Punch glass, or a “fancy bar-glass.” I prefer the Cocktail glass, since it limits the amount of fizz that goes into the drink, ensuring that it sparkles yet still has a Cocktail-like throw-weight to it. It should be noted that in the context of 1887, a large cocktail glass held approximately 3½ ounces.

  BRANDY, GIN, RUM, OR WHISKEY DAISY (NEW SCHOOL)

  The fancy Daisy of the 1910s.

  BRANDY DAISY RUM DAISY

  GIN DAISY WHISKEY DAISY

  ALL THE ABOVE DAISIES ARE MADE AS FOLLOWS:

  JUICE ½ LIME AND ¼ LEMON

  1 TEASPOONFUL POWDERED SUGAR

  2 DASHES [1 TSP] GRENADINE

  1 DRINK [2 OZ] OF LIQUOR DESIRED

  2 DASHES [½ OZ] CARBONATED WATER

  Use silver mug, put in above ingredients, fill up with fine ice, stir until mug is frosted, decorate with fruit and sprays of fresh mint and serve with straws.

  SOURCE: HUGO ENSSLIN, RECIPES FOR MIXED DRINKS, 1916

  NOTES ON INGREDIENTS: Where Ensslin says “powdered,” we would today say “superfine.” Others used a good deal more carbonated water in their new-school Daisies. Still others—Jacques Straub, for one—used none at all. It’s your choice. I like a goodly splash in mine. For the fruit decoration, berries in season, pieces of orange and pineapple, and maraschino cherries are all appropriate (as, for that matter, are kiwi, starfruit, and Buddha’s hand, if not idiomatic).

  GIN, WHISKEY, BRANDY, OR

  SANTA CRUZ RUM FIZZ

  San Francisco has a knack for generating great bartenders. If Jerry Thomas was the first, or one of them, he was by no means the last. One of the good ones at the turn of the last century was Ernest P. Rawling. Judging by his 1914 Rawling’s Book of Mixed Drinks, he was a sensible, patient sort who gave a good deal of thought to the right and wrong ways of doing things. But he also had a poetic side: “While the Cocktail is unquestionably the most popular drink on the Pacific coast today,” he wrote,

  the next in favor is surely the Fizz—the long drink par excellence. At any time or in any place where the tongue and throat are dry; when the spirits are jaded and the body is weary; after a long automobile trip on hot and dusty roads; it is then that the Gin Fizz comes like a cooling breeze from the sea, bringing new life and the zest and joy of living.

  And in the “morning after the night before,” when the whole world seems gray and lonesome, and every nerve and fibre of the body is throbbing a complaint against the indiscretion, just press the button and order a Gin Fizz—“Not too sweet, please!” It comes. Oh, shades of the green oasis in the sandy desert of life!

  Truer words were never written. Not about the Fizz, anyway. Of course, that green-oasis effect only works if you’re having just one. Maybe two. But not forty. Definitely not forty.

  That’s how many Gin Fizzes “Professor” Denton, of Brooklyn, New York, used to put away in a day, back in the early 1890s. Of course, he was “the champion gin fizz drinker in America,” as he used to bill himself while he went around the Williamsburg bars cadging drinks, so he was perhaps exceptional (and not an example to be emulated, seeing as he died from internal hemorrhaging after betting that he could drink a Fizz and eat the glass, too). But Gin Fizzes are definitely moreish. Have one and you want another and that way danger lies. That’s the essence of the Fizz—as the Japanese ambassador reportedly said upon trying one in the early 1890s, “it buzzes like a fly and stings like a wasp.”

  If the Gin Fizz, or “Fiz,” as Jerry Thomas called it, was primus inter pares, before long there was no shortage of other Fizzes in circulation, based on all the canonical liquors including applejack, with variations. Silver, Golden, Morning Glory, Police Gazette, Elks’, Electric Current, Green, Sitting Bull, Ramos—the list goes on. But then again, they needed a lot of ’em. A Fizz, you see, was what a sporting man would moisten the clay with directly upon arising—an eye-opener, corpse-reviver, fog-cutter, gloom-lifter. A hangover cure. Into the saloon you’d go, the kindly internist behind the bar would manipulate a bottle or two, and zam! There stood the glass, packed with vitamins, pro
teins (assuming you went for one with egg in it, such as a Silver Fizz, below), and complex sugars, foaming brightly and aglow with the promise of sweet release. Civilization proceeds, but not always forward.

  (USE SMALL BAR-GLASS.)

  4 OR 5 DASHES [1½ TSP] OF GUM SYRUP

  JUICE OF HALF A LEMON

  1 SMALL WINEGLASS [2 OZ] OF [SPIRITS]

  Fill the glass half full of shaved ice, shake up well and strain into a glass. Fill up the glass with Seltzer water from a siphon and drink without hesitation.

  SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1876 (COMPOSITE; THIS WAS THE DRINK’S FIRST KNOWN APPEARANCE IN PRINT)

  NOTES ON INGREDIENTS: Thomas doesn’t say what kind of gin to use here, but judging by his contemporaries it would have been Old Tom; one does not see Hollands recommended for this drink—not that it makes a bad Fizz, but the lighter English styles give it more snap.

  A Crushed Strawberry Fizz is a standard Gin Fizz with two or three strawberries muddled into it (use at least 2 teaspoons of gum). It was a specialty of New York’s venerable St. Nicholas Hotel in the 1880s.

  NOTES ON EXECUTION: Use a narrow-mouthed, 6- to 8-ounce glass. This can and should be chilled in advance, but when receiving the drink it should not have ice in it, nor should any be added once the glass is full. A Fizz is meant to be drunk off quickly, like a Cocktail, not lingered over, like a Collins.

  If making a Crushed Strawberry Fizz, begin by quickly muddling the strawberries in with the lemon juice and syrup. Add gin and ice, shake well, and double-strain it (with the Hawthorne strainer in the shaker and the Julep strainer held over the glass).

  It was an old Fizz-maker’s trick to not sweeten the drink until the very end, when a large spoonful of superfine sugar would be stirred in. If there’s enough soda in the drink and not too much extraneous matter (eggs, cream, and such), this should make the drink fizz up most impressively.

  SILVER FIZZ

  In 1883, Fred Hildreth, head bartender at one of Chicago’s top salons, mentioned the Silver Fizz to a man from the Tribune as one of the “popular fancy drinks” of the day. It would remain so for another forty years, during which it did yeoman service as a lifeline for the overhung.

  (USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

  ONE-HALF TABLE-SPOON OF SUGAR

  2 OR 3 DASHES [½ OZ] OF LEMON JUICE

  1 WINE-GLASS [2 OZ] OF OLD TOM GIN

  1 EGG (THE WHITE ONLY)

  Three-quarters glass filled with fine shaved ice; shake up well with a shaker, strain it into a good sized fizz glass, fill up the glass with Syphon Selters [sic] or Vichy Water, mix well, and serve.

  SOURCE: HARRY JOHNSON, NEW AND IMPROVED BARTENDER’S MANUAL, 1882

  NOTES ON INGREDIENTS : For an industrial-grade katzenjammer, try taking Johnson’s Golden Fizz: Simply replace the egg white with the yolk and, optionally, the gin with whiskey. The result is a very soothing drink, and much tastier than it sounds.

  NOTES ON EXECUTION: As with all egg drinks, this one will take some serious shaking.

  MORNING GLORY FIZZ

  An early and quite successful attempt at mixologizing with Scotch. Other than the likelihood that this is a Harry Johnson original (for whom see the Bijou Cocktail, page 256), little about the drink is known. As with any drink that goes by the name “Morning Glory,” this is a hangover-helper.

  (USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

  In all first-class barrooms it is proper to have the whites of eggs separated into an empty bottle,providing you have a demand for such a drink as above,and keep them continually on ice,as by doing so,considerable time will be saved; mix as follows:

  THREE-QUARTERS TABLE-SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

  3 OR 4 DASHES [½ OZ] OF LEMON JUICE

  2 OR 3 DASHES [¼ OZ] OF LIME JUICE

  3 OR 4 DASHES OF ABSINTHE [½ TSP], DISSOLVED WELL WITH [A] LIT-

  TLE WATER

  THREE-QUARTER GLASS FILLED WITH FINE SHAVED ICE

  1 EGG (THE WHITE ONLY)

  1 WINEGLASS [2 OZ] OF SCOTCH

  WHISKEY

  Shake up well with a shaker; strain it into a good-sized bar-glass; fill up the balance with Syphon Selters [sic] or Vichy water,and serve. The above drink must be drank as soon as prepared, so as not to lose the effect of it. The author respectfully recommends the above drink as an excellent one for a morning beverage,which will give a good appetite and quiet the nerves.

  SOURCE: HARRY JOHNSON, NEW AND IMPROVED BARTENDER’S MANUAL, 1882

  NOTES ON INGREDIENTS : One must assume that the Scotch here is

  The Morning Glory Fizz, As Mixed (right) and Served (left). From Harry Johnson’s New and Improved Illustrated Bartender’s Manual, 1888. (Courtesy Ted Haigh)

  the blended kind, which was then beginning its assault on American shores. Don’t worry about dissolving the absinthe in water.

  For the equally effective Saratoga Brace Up, found in the 1887 edition of Thomas’s book, use a whole egg, replace the Scotch with brandy, lose the lime juice, cut the absinthe down to 2 dashes, and add a couple of dashes of Angostura. Okay, that’s a lot to change, but the results are worth it.

  NOTES ON EXECUTION: Begin with the juices and 1 teaspoon or so of water, stirring the sugar into it. Shake vigorously.

  NEW ORLEANS FIZZ, ALIAS RAMOS GIN FIZZ

  In 1887, a New Orleans bartender by the name of Henry Charles Ramos—everyone called him Carl—and his brother took over a saloon at the corner of Gravier and Carondelet streets in the heart of the “Faubourg Americain,” the city’s Anglo-dominated business district. Business at the Imperial Cabinet Saloon (which was named after a brand of whiskey, among other things) went on pretty well for a while, and then it went really, really well. For whatever reason, New Orleans really took off as a tourist destination in the late 1890s, and suddenly everyone was interested in its quaint, historic saloons (even if they were only a dozen years old). Maybe this was because the Midwest was going Dry at an alarming rate. In any case, one of the biggest beneficiaries was Carl Ramos: suddenly his bar, a courtly, decorous joint that closed at eight every evening, was packed to the gills with punters all clamoring for one of his house special Fizzes. In 1900, The Kansas City Star dubbed the Imperial Cabinet “the most famous gin fizz saloon in the world” and went on to add, “Ramos serves a gin fizz which is not equaled anywhere.”

  All that business meant work: Ramos’s “One and Only One,” as he dubbed his version of the Fizz, took a lot of shaking. You see, it supplemented the gin and citrus juice—split between lemon and lime, a common epicurean touch at the time—with the two ingredients that are hardest to mix: egg white and cream. Individually, not such a problem, and certainly nothing new (as early as 1891, William Schmidt had published a Cream Fizz recipe; see the Silver Fizz [page 114] for the egg white). But use both, and you’re going to need some muscle to get them to emulsify. Which is precisely what Ramos had: For each of his bartenders—in 1900, during Mardi Gras, he was employing six on a shift—there was a “shaker boy,” a young black man whose sole job was to receive the fully charged shaker from the bartender and shake the bejeezus out of it. Contemporary accounts say that this went on for fifteen minutes, but I’m willing to bet it only seemed that long, especially to the guy who had to do all the work.

  In 1907, Ramos moved a couple of blocks to larger quarters, taking over the operation of the Stag Saloon, across from the St. Charles Hotel (the Stag was owned by the notorious Tom Anderson, “Mayor” of Storyville). Business was even better than before: During Mardi Gras, 1915, he had thirty-five shakermen on. Evidently, the procedure had changed: Now, one man shook until his arms were tired and passed it to another, in a long chain. It was something to see.

  When Prohibition came, unlike Duncan Nichol, who took the Formula of his Pisco Punch to his grave, Ramos told everyone exactly how to make ’em. For this, he deserves the title benefactor generis humani, a benefactor of the human race. Here’s his formula as he dictated it to a reporter for the New Orleans Item-Tribune a few years before his death in 1928.

>   (1) ONE TABLESPOONFUL POWDERED SUGAR

  THREE OR FOUR DROPS OF ORANGE FLOWER WATER

  ONE-HALF LIME (JUICE)

  ONE-HALF LEMON (JUICE)

  (1) ONE JIGGER [1½ OZ] OF OLD TOM GIN. (OLD GORDON MAY BE USED

  BUT A SWEET GIN IS PREFERABLE)

  THE WHITE OF ONE EGG

  ONE-HALF GLASS OF CRUSHED ICE

  ABOUT (2) TABLESPOONSFUL OF RICH MILK OR CREAM

  A LITTLE SELTZER WATER (ABOUT AN OUNCE) TO MAKE IT PUNGENT

  TOGETHER WELL SHAKEN AND STRAINED (DRINK FREELY)

  To those who may have forgotten, a“jigger” is a stemmed sherry glass holding a little more than one ounce.

  SOURCE: NEW ORLEANS ITEM-TRIBUNE, 1925