It's hard to believe that just a few years ago it was difficult
to find cocktail ingredients like genever gin or absinthe. Today
the options for drink enthusiasts are overwhelming, and much of the
credit for this renaissance can be attributed to David
Wondrich. In 2007 he published the James Beard-award winning
Imbibe, which helped to spark the craft
cocktail revival.
The first section of Imbibe focused on bartending
superstar Jerry Thomas. Thomas is the author of one of the first
comprehensive cocktail guides, How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant's
Companion. Thomas was a flamboyant character, and it
proved difficult for Wondrich to separate fact from fiction
regarding the legendary bartender's exploits as many sources were
impossible to verify. Other challenges Wondrich faced, mainly due
to a paucity of contemporaneous literature, including determining
the origins of several drinks and the genesis of the word cocktail
itself.
Not content to rest on his laurels, and spurred by the nagging
questions he still faced, Wondrich decided to update
Imbibe, and a revised edition has just been released. Grub
Street caught up with Wondrich on the eve of the book's launch to
find out what we can expect to learn from the new and
improved version. For starters, it contains much more
information on Jerry Thomas and other early bartenders.
In addition, we now know more about the mint julep. Wondrich
discovered that it was a much older drink than he originally
thought. "In 1770, in Virginia, there are two solid references to
the julep being a recreational drink. That's a big deal, I think. I
had looked at the part on the julep in the original edition and I
was shocked and disappointed. I wrote almost nothing about it."
Wondrich also believes he has finally nailed down the origins of
the term cocktail. It comes from the days of horse trading when
sellers would use tricks to make an aging horse appear lively: "If
you had an old horse you were trying to sell, you would put some
ginger up its butt, and it would cock its tail up and be frisky.
That was known as "cock-tail." It comes from that. It became this
morning thing. Something to cock your tail up, like an eye-opener.
I'm almost positive that's where it's from."