102 / 252
Old Waldorf Bar Days
knew how to compose, and did compose, four hundred
and ninety-one different kinds of mixed drinks.
Those two hundred and seventy-one varieties of what
was once the great American drink, one which carried
the name of our people all over the world; those over
four hundred more varieties of picklers than the most
ambitious American pickler of his age was ever able to
advertise--and which pickled more people-deserve, if
by name only, to live in history. For their nomenclature
belongs to it. It is not only part of our chronicles as a
nation, but an index to certain social, industrial and ar–
tistic achievements of an age.
Brushing aside such mythological, ornithological, eth–
nological, zoological, or otherwise "logical" designations
as Adonis, Bird, Bridal, Bishop Poker, Creole, Goat's
Delight, Gloom Lifter and Hoptoad, which name only
a few kinds of cocktails that used to be served in the
old Waldorf Bar, consider just a few that betray less
of fancy and originality, but perhaps more of cause of
ongm.
For example, take the Armour, called after a well-
known Chicago patron of the establishment. Then there
was a Beadleston, named after another customer who
sold the Bar much of the beer he brewed, and after whom
was baptized a second cocktail, the Beadleston No.
2.
Speaking still alphabetically, there was a Bunyan, spelled
with an "a," not an "o," and summoning up thoughts
of a thirsty pilgrim's progress to a land of never-never–
thirst. A "Chauncey" must have been named after the
most distinguished person of that prenomen, a famous
orator and wit. There is no record that its namesake was
[ 102]