[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING] The American way of drinking,
Charles Dickens called it perpendicular drinking. It meant you stood up at
the bar rather than sitting at a table. Everyone individual, you
want it your way. I want it my way. We're all Americans. Nobody can tell us what to do. During the 19th century
everybody drank a lot. There was no aspirin then. There were no other remedies
that really worked except for opium. So those were your choices. Alcohol had to stand in
for a lot of things. The book that I'm going to be
mixing drinks from is Jerry Thomas's "Bartender's Guide."
It was published in 1862. It was the first book of its
kind, the first book to have American cocktails and
American drinks in it in any quantity. Beyond that, it was the book
that organized the American way of drinking. It was enormously popular and
enormously influential. And it's still influential
today. The first drink I'm
going to make is called a Brandy Crusta. It's a drink that first made
it into print in Jerry Thomas's book. He found himself in New Orleans
in the 1850s and he got this from a man by the name
of Joseph Santini, an Italian immigrant who
ran one of the fanciest bars in the South. This is the world's first
fancy cocktail. It leads to all the fancy
ornamental drinks that the come afterwards. So the first thing I'm going
to do is peel a lemon. You want a nice, thick,
long peel. Because what we're going to do
with it is put it in our cocktail glass around the rim. And then I'm going to wet the
rim of the glass, and maybe the lemon peel, with lemon
juice, and roll it in sugar. This is the fine Italian touch
of Santini's here. So to mix the Crusta, I'm going
to start with some 1840s style cognac, a little stronger
than what we have today, a little richer
in flavor, in my small mixing glass. I use small glasses for
short drinks and big glasses for big drinks. I'm going to add some Demerara
sugar syrup, very rich and sweet, a splash of Maraschino
liqueur-- this is not the same as
Maraschino cherry juice. It's a very pungent, funky
liqueur from northern Italy and Yugoslavia. Add a little bit of lemon juice,
which was Santini's great idea in this drink. The recipe calls for
a couple dashes. I'm just going to put a half a
bar spoon because we don't know how much a dash
was back then. It's very hard to tell what
kind of bottles they were using to dash things from. But this is just a little bit
to take a little bit of the sweet edge off of the drink, not
so much as to make it like a sour or a Sidecar or
something like that. Then finally, some dashes of
Paychaud's Bitters, a New Orleans brand. It's a New Orleans drink. We've got those in there. And now for the ice. I'll use my spoon here, because
back then they used to use huge blocks in the bar. And they could cut them down
into any size they wanted and shave them. They had ice shavers. They used fine ice for stirred
drinks and cubed ice for shaken drinks, which if you do
the physics, is actually the best way to do it in terms
of getting things cold. Let me stir this. Stirring is the great forgotten
drink-making skill. OK, I'm going to strain
it into the glass now. And there is a Brandy Crusta. It's quite delightful. [JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING] I'm going to make a Sherry
Cobbler now. This is a drink that was just
about the most popular thing in America from about the 1830s
when it starts turning up, mid 1830s on close
to the 20th century. This was a world without the
popular soft drinks we have today, the mass marketed
soft drinks. And this passed almost
for a soft drink. I think the term cobbler in
this drink comes from cobblestones, little hailstones
of ice, because it was made with little
pieces of ice. And it was one of the first
popular iced drinks. It also was the drink that got
us drinking with straws. Our teeth weren't the
best, necessarily. So we needed a way to keep our
teeth away from the ice. Enter the straw. Start with a tall glass. Jerry Thomas calls for two
tablespoons of sugar, which I think is a little bit
excessive in this. But again, they had
a sweet tooth. And this was one of the
ways of satisfying it. I'm going to use a spoon and a
half of superfine sugar, maybe a little less. A bar spoon's a little smaller
than a teaspoon. Next, two wine glasses
of sherry. Now a wine glass was a measure
back then, and it meant a glass like this. This was before they had
jiggers early on. I'm using a dry Amontillado
sherry here, very rich and nutty flavored, two
wine glasses full. Give it a little stir to
dissolve the sugar. And then just a couple
slices of oranges. Cut them in half. Save the better looking
one from my garnish. The other one will
go in there. And then scoop in some ice. I've got some pebble ice
here, some fine ice. Put on my shaker tin. This technique of using the tin
goes back to the 1840s. We still use it today. It's remarkably successful. Crack it. And then I'm just going to pour
it all back in there. A couple nice, clean
orange slices. Enter the straw. And there you have it, a
Sherry Cobbler, simple, refreshing, very,
very effective. [JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING] When I go into a bar and I'm
in the mood to drink a cocktail, I always check
a couple things. First I look behind the bar
and see what the stock is. And then I listen
to the shake. If it's a quick up and down,
once or twice, I probably order a beer. But if it's a good thorough hard
shake and you really get a sense the bartender is
working, then I'm a lot more willing to give things a try. I'm going to start with my
silver shaker here because this one needs some
serious shaking. So I'm going to up the ante, put
a couple two big heaping bar spoons of sugar. Because this one,
it's egg nog. It should be sweet. We'll just get the water in
there, a little water to dissolve the sugar. And then I'm going to crack an
egg in here, a whole egg. It is an egg nog, after all. Next, booze, a wine glass
full of cognac. I would recommend if you're
making this for yourself, you might not want to put quite
so much booze in this. Because this ends up being as
strong as a double martini. We're going to use a nice
English style rum, some dark Barbados rum, a little
bit of funk to it. He calls for a pony glass,
a half of a wine glass. Finally, milk, a third
of a tumbler. Let me use a wine glass
and a half. It's hard to tell how
much a tumbler is. So we'll use about three ounces
of milk in there. Ice. Cover the shaker. This, we need to shake
very hard. And I'm going to the strain it
into our glass with our silver strainer there. Finally we need to garnish it
with some nutmeg on top, always grated fresh. And there we have an amazing
glass of egg nog. You might not want to have
more than one of these. And grandma, you might
not even want to give her a whole one. Depends on your grandma. I have to try this. Damn, it's good. [JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING] One of the bartender's greatest tricks was tossing drinks. I used to think the movie
"Cocktail" was completely bogus with all that
flair bartending. And I thought I was very
much above that. But then the more I studied
American bar tending, the more I realized what an integral
part that is. Back in the day, they would
toss the drinks back and forth, over their heads,
between two tumblers. Nobody can figure that
out anymore. It's a lost art. The Blue Blazer is something
Jerry Thomas claimed that he invented. And as far as I can
tell, he did. It's basically a hot scotch,
which was a common drink of the time, set on fire. The drink begins very simply, a
little bit of sugar in each, a chip of lemon peel. Our glasses are prepared. And then the silver mugs. So at this point we're going to
have to dim the lights so you can see why it's called
a Blue Blazer. Start with boiling water, cask
strength Scotch whiskey, using a nice [INAUDIBLE] whiskey,
very smoky. Get that out of the way because
it is flammable. And then aerate it. Nice, even pour. Be sure that the handles are
pointing straight away from you and you're pouring from
the side, otherwise you'll burn your knuckles. All right, I'm going to pour
these flaming into the cups. Blue Blazers. [JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING] For most of the 20th century,
the old bartender's craft as practiced by Jerry Thomas and
his contemporaries was very much in eclipse in America,
and in most of the world, frankly. But going into the 21st
century, this art has come back. A bar is still a free
and easy place. You have more freedom than you
do in any other place in American life. [JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]