The Craft of the Cocktail

THE HISTORY OF THE COCKTAIL

I learned abut cocktails much the same way I learned to tend bar. Certainly through research, but mainly through experience.

My fellow bartenders taught me how to treat people, my customers taught me about life, and most important, my mentor, the great restaurateur Joe Baum, taught me how little I knew. Joe sparked my curiosity to find out what makes a great cocktail.

The cocktail is, in a word, American. It's as American as jazz, apple pie, and baseball; and as diverse, colorful, and big as America itself. Indeed, it could even be argued that the cocktail is a metaphor for the American people: It is a composite beverage, and we are a composite people. Let's begin by looking at what preceded its invention.

The early days

Before Europeans settled in America, they had been cultivating beverage traditions for centuries. Southern Europeans, around the Mediterranean, produced wine and brandy, while distilled-grain spirits were part of the tradition and culture of the peoples who inhabited the northern tier of Europe, where it was too cold for wine grapes to grow. Interestingly, the distillates produced with fermented grape and grain mash were also revered for their "medicinal" qualities, and came be known as aqua vitae in Latin, eau-de-vie in French, usquebaugh in Gaelic, and "water of life" in English. Naturally, as the technology of distilled spirits from grain and grape advanced, water of life could be produced more cheaply and in greater quantities, and eventually it was used to produce flavored cordials and liqueurs.

Once the Europeans established themselves on this side of the Atlantic, they put to good use the beer- and wine-making skills they had brought with them from the Old World. They also brought the Old World opinion that drinking water was unwholesome, even dangerous. The early colonists were voracious experimenters, fermenting beverages from practically everything they could get their hands on: pumpkins,

DALE DeGROFF has been called the Billy Graham of the holy spirits by the London Tribune and a master by Martha Stewart, and is widely acknowledged to be the preeminent mixologist in the world. He s been featured in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Penthouse, Food & Wine, and Forbes; his television appearances include Martha Stewart Living and Today. For twelve years, Dale ran the bar at New York City s Rainbow Room and now serves as a consultant for such top restaurants as Balthazar. He has taught at the Culinary Institute of America (and stars in their bartending video) and the Institute for Culinary Education, among other venues. Dale grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island, and now lives on Long Island.

Visit Dale DeGroff at www.kingcocktail.com.