1925 Drinks Long & Short by Nina Toye and A H Adair

Drinks—Long and Short

To the making ofcocktails there is no end,nor is the art likely to perish from the earth. The word"art" is used advisedly,for the compound ing of a cocktail is a delicate business. There is as much art in the blending offlavoursin a glass as in the blending of colours on a canvas or in a scheme of decoration. Even the choice of the appropriate cocktail for any occasion betrays the hostess'savoirfaire—one might better say savott boire—or her lack of it. ^ Those who despise the cocktail,who denounce cocktail-drinking as a pernicious habit,are out of their own mouthscondemned. The person who absorbs six or more cocktails at a sitting is no more and no less a commendable member of society than would be he who, as a prelude to dinner, consumed a pound ofcaviare or six dozen oysters, or in the middle ofthe afternoon regaled himself on a box of salted almonds or a barrel of olives. Over-indulgence in cocktails betrays a gross spirit and an utterlack ofunderstanding of the role of the cocktail. Our forebears were wont to pursue the party spirit, which they called conviviality, through a procession ofbottles ofsherry,claret,champagne, port and what not, marching steadily athwart the repast and after; that pursuit ended only too frequently in the recumbent forms of those same valiant drinkers being swept up with the crumbs in the morning. What was worse, not infre-