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INTRODUCTION
Orleans. There he dipped into his money bags and opened
a barroom which the preface to his literary work describes
as a very recherche establishment. But he soon became dis
couraged,for his heart was in the preparation of cold weather
beverages, and there was scant demand in Louisiana for
the Blue Blazer and the Tom and Jerry. He soon sold his
New Orleans property and returned to New York, where
he was immediately engaged as Principal Bartender of the
Metropolitan Hotel, then under the management of William
M.Tweed and a center of the city's night life, which in those
days was quite abundant. Professor Thomas celebrated
his return to the chilly North by mixing a huge punch bowl
of Tom and Jerry, which was given away free to all cus
tomers for a week,and by introducing several fine Southern
mixtures to the jaded palates of the principal men of Gotham.
Chief among them was the Crusta, a beverage of rare merit
which was first compounded by Santina, owner of a cele
brated Spanish Cafe in New Orleans.
When Professor Thomas began his experiments with the
cocktail, this splendid concoction, whose name is now daily
taken in vain by thousands of wierd mixtures in thousands
of American homes, was then the puling infant of the great
family of beverages, and had few friends and practically no
admirers."The cocktail," wrote Professor Thomas,"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." Indeed, at this period the
cocktail was not only a morning drink, an eye-opener, but
was seldom served over the bar; as Professor Thomas indi
cates, it was generally bottled and sold for trips into the
country and other expeditions. In the course of time it
became more popular, but as late as 1885 it had not become
the standard before-dinner drink that it was in later years,
and as it is now throughout this great land."In the morn
ing," said a paper called Under the Gaslight, in 1879,"the
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