THE IDEAL BARTENDERbyTOM BULLOCK
1917 DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO ENJOY SNUG CLUB ROOMS, THAT THEY MAY LEARN THE ART OF PREPARING FOR THEMSELVES WHAT IS GOOD. IS IT ANY WONDER THAT MANKIND STANDS OPEN-MOUTHED BEFORE THE BARTENDER, CONSIDERING THE MYSTERIES AND MARVELS OF AN ART THAT BORDERS ON MAGIC? RECIPES FOUND IN THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN COMPOSED AND COLLECTED, TRIED AND TESTED, IN A QUARTER-CENTURY OF EXPERIENCE BY TOM BULLOCK OF THE ST. LOUIS COUNTRY CLUB. A testimonial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which appeared in the form of an editorial, Wednesday evening, May 28, 1913, at a time when Col. Roosevelt was vindicating, by a libel suit, his reputation for sobriety and temperance. Colonel Roosevelt's fatal admission that he drank just a part of one
julep at the St. Louis Country Club will come very near losing his
case.
Who was ever known to drink just a part of one of Tom's? Tom, than whom there is no greater mixologist of any race, color or condition of servitude, was taught the art of the julep by no less than Marse Lilburn G. McNair, the father of the julep. In fact, the very cup that Col. Roosevelt drank it from belonged to Governor McNair, the first Governor of Missouri, the great-grandfather of Marse Lilburn and the great-great-grandfather of the julep. As is well known, the Country Club mint originally sprang on the slopes of Parnassus and was transplanted thence to the bosky banks of Culpeper Creek, Gaines County, Ky., and thence to our own environs; while the classic distillation with which Tom mingles it to produce his chief d'oeuvre is the oft-quoted liquefied soul of a Southern moonbeam falling aslant the dewy slopes of the Cumberland Mountains. To believe that a red-blooded man, and a true Colonel at that, ever stopped with just a part of one of those refreshments which have made St. Louis hospitality proverbial and become one of our most distinctive genre institutions, is to strain credulity too far. Are the Colonel's powers of self restraint altogether transcendent? Have we found the living superman at last? When the Colonel says that he consumed just a part of one he doubtless meant that he did not swallow the Mint itself, munch the ice and devour the very cup. By The American Cookbook Project |
