While most bartenders throughout history have labored their entire careers in obscurity, some have become famous for their skill behind the stick, some because they wrote significant books on drinks and mixology, some because they were alchemists with mixers and spirits, and some because they were incredible self-promoters – attaining an almost superstar status. But the skill that I find the most amazing, and stupefying, is the ability to converse with, cajole, support, and counsel patrons while creating complicated mixtures where even slight differences can make the difference between average and sublime. Bartending is not the most important role an individual can play in holding a society together, but if there is one thing that the last year of isolation has shown us, bartenders matter. Socialization, networking, and relaxing are necessary and bartenders, servers, and neighborhood bars are as important today as they were when the Founding Fathers set about overthrowing the most powerful military force in the world while sitting around the hearth, drinking ale and rum, and engaged in sedition.
For World Bartender Day, it only seems right to recognize those who have given us so much pleasure – and at times comfort. Some are obvious and well known. The ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, showman, mixologist, and writer is responsible for the first bartender’s manual in 1862. He was also famous for traveling Europe as a celebrity, putting on huge events where he mixed cocktails with his two signature white rats on his shoulder, he mixing drinks for royalty and huge audiences with his solid silver bar set.
Or the legendary Englishman, Harry Craddock, dean of the shaker, who learned his trade at America’s Hoffman House and the Knickerbocker in New York City. Craddock became a US citizen before heading back to London on the eve of Prohibition – legend has it that he mixed the last cocktail in America before the law took effect – and spent his career at the London Savoy Hotel American Bar. Craddock’s contributions cannot be understated. While an accomplished mixologist in his own right, he was a learned bartender and chronicled a comprehensive list of 750 cocktails in his 1930 book, ‘The Savoy Cocktail Book’ which is still in print today, saving much of the mixological history by putting it down on paper. Cradock is also co-founder of the United Kingdom Bartender’s Guild in 1934.
But the two individuals who I really want to remember are known by many who are cocktail historians, but few outside of that group. The first is Ada ‘Coley’ Coleman, the most famous female bartender of the 20th century, and the woman who trained and handed over the reins of the American Bar at the Savoy to Harry Craddock. Coleman’s father was a steward at Rupert D’Oyly Carte‘s golf club in England, and when he passed away in 1899, D’Oyly gave her a job at his club. She soon found herself working at the bar at a time when women made up about half of the bartenders in England. It was a job for young (no older than 25) girls who were unmarried daughters of blue collar men – or those from better families who were disowned or “brought shame to their families”. By 1903 she was made head bartender at the turn of the century when there was a drive in London to prohibit women from working in bars.
In 1925, the American Bar shut down for renovations, coinciding with the retirement of Coleman. She handed over the Head Bartender role to Harry Craddock, who had spent the previous five years working the back bar supporting Coleman and learning the ropes. After her retirement in an interview with The London Daily Express, who called her “England’s most famous barmaid” and “The Queen of Cocktail Mixers”, Coleman estimated she had served one hundred thousand customers and poured one million drinks. Cocktail historian Ted Hughes writes, “Not only was Coley…a woman in the world of male bartenders, it was she who made the bar famous.”
Coleman was more of a lively personality behind the bar than a prolific mixologist – but she did give the world the Hanky Panky, still served at the Savoy, and included in The Savoy Cocktail Book.
The second unsung bartender is Louisville, KY native Thomas Bullock. Bullock was the first African-American barman to write a cocktail book. ‘The Ideal Bartender’, published in 1917, is significant for two additional reasons. It is one of the last cocktail books published in America before Prohibition and as such is a glimpse into what Americans were drinking before the drinking stopped (at least the legal drinking). But even more significant, unlike virtually all cocktail books prior, which were collections of recipes of others thrown together along with a couple of originals, The Ideal Bartender contained only original drinks from the creative mind of Bullock.
He was born in 1872, a decade after the end of the Civil War to a father who was a slave. He was able to obtain a job at the exclusive Pendennis Club in Louisville as a bellhop and worked his way into the bar – as bartending was one of very few professions open to black men in the South. There is a long tradition of highly skilled African-American bartenders in the South, as opposed to the North where the hiring of a black bartender, Louis Deal, at Cincinnati’s Atlas Hotel caused a city-wide boycott in 1893. It was here at the Pendennis Club where legend has it Bullock made the first Old Fashioned for club member James E. Pepper. In truth, the Old Fashioned predates the legend, but no doubt helped the drink gain nationwide popularity.
Bullock left Louisville for work in several cities, settling in St Louis at the St. Louis Country Club, where he collected fans such as George Herbert Walker, grandfather of President George Bush Sr., and August Busch Sr., CEO of Anheuser-Busch. Bullock was vaulted into national fame when President Teddy Roosevelt sued George Newitt for writing an article that, among other things, called Roosevelt a drunk. During the trial, Roosevelt stated that he had only had two mint julips in the last year, with one of those at the St. Louis Country Club, and he only took two sips. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch responded that Roosevelt must be lying. “Who was ever known to drink just a part of Tom’s? Tom, than whom there is no greater mixologist of any race, was taught the art of the julep by no less than Marse Lilburn G. McNair, the father of the julep.” This made Tom Bullock a household name and cemented his legacy as the Master of the Julep.
Bullock used this notoriety and support from Walker and Busch to publish his now famous cocktail book. But in 1919 Missouri ratified the 18th Amendment, turning the lights off legal bartending. Bullock continued to work at the St. Louis Country Club for several years with unspecified duties – and most historians believe he continued to tend bar and mix juleps for the members.
Bullock disappeared in 1927 but is believed to have lived until 1964. He was a private man, and little is known of his life, and sadly the truth may be that few had interest in writing about a skilled black barman in the south during the middle of the last century.
There have been thousands of skilled bartenders since long before the naming of the iconic American cocktail in 1803. Some have created drinks that are so sublime, they almost bring you to tears. But the vast majority stand before the bar, listening to your stale stories and bad jokes, mixing drinks and help to stitch communities and neighborhoods together. Let’s all raise a glass to Jerry Thomas, Harry MacElhone, Donn Beach, Trader Vic, Harry Craddock, and contemporary mixologists Dale DeGroff, Ryan Chetiyawardana, Julie Reiner, Dick Bradsell, Sasha Petraske, Audrey Saunders, and Phil Ward. But thank those who don’t necessarily come to mind, like Coleman and Bullock. And don’t forget to thank the bartender who made that amazing drink that you needed after a hard week, who’s name you don’t even know.
And for God’s sake. Tip you bartenders and servers.
Cheers!
Bill
AotCB-030
Instagram@architecture_of_the_cocktail
