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and was brought to England in 1859 by the famous Jerry
Thomas, who visited London, Southampton and Liverpool
exhibiting his art with the aid of a solid silver set of bar
utensils valued at £1,000. Although something of a
showman, Jerry Thomas invented many new, and, in the
case of his " Blue Blazer," startling drinks with which he
astounded the staid beer and wine drinkers of England.
Although this tour was financially successful, he was prudent
enough to make it a brief novelty and soon returned to
America.
In 1862 " The Bartenders
5
Guide " was written by Jerry
Thomas, who described himself as being formerly of the
Metropolitan Hotel, New York, and the Planters' House,
St. Louis. He gave ten recipes for cocktails, and of the
cocktail he wrote: The cocktail is a modern invention, and
is generally used on fishing and other sporting parties,
although some patients insist that it is good in the morning
as a tonic. With the exception of the " Bottle Cocktail," all
his recipes call for the use of ice, so the " fishing and sporting
parties " must have been on an elaborate scale.
That the cocktail had taken firm root in America is
proved by a paper called " Under the Gaslight " in 1879,
which notes: " In the morning the merchant, the lawyer, or
the Methodist deacon takes his cocktail. Suppose it is not
properly compounded ? The whole day's proceedings go
crooked because the man himself feels wrong from the effects
of an unskilfully mixed drink."
The first real American bar to be opened in London
was at the Criterion Restaurant about 1878, with Leo Engel
as bartender. Both the bar and the bartender were imported
from America, and some wit of the times remarked that,
" although the carved eagles, that adorned the bar, all sat
up above, they had their human prototype working
unceasingly below."