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CONSTITUTIVE AND DERIVATIVE
II
imported cocktail shakers and increased the manufacture of
ice. Not a few Frenchmen had learned about cocktails
in America. The Chatham bar and Henry's and a dozen
or more other places knew just how Martinis and Old–
Fashioneds were made, and served them. That was one
reason why many an American found Paris more enjoy–
able than London, and stayed longer. Of course, in Lon–
don hotel bars frequented by Americans, cocktails, so–
called, were served long ago by English barmaids and
drunk liberally. American visitors, though they refused to
acquire the tea habit ·and balked at Scotch, simply had to
drink something in that climate. But somehow the con–
coctions lacked";iuthenticity; they did not taste like real
cocktails. English bartenders and barmaids, it appeared,
found as much difficulty composing cocktails harmoniously
as did their musicians in learning to play music of Amer–
ican origin and tempo. At this distance and with the con–
quest of London by our "jazz kings" a part of ancient
history, the comparison must seem inept. But I knew the
London of twenty-five to thirty years ago; I lived there.
Not until the summer of
1920,
so far as I was able to
ascertain, did an American-trained barman make his ap–
pearance at one of the high-class London hotels. That was
the year when most' American bartenders found themselves
out of jobs. This one, however, was a Britisher. I knew
the Englishman who had been commissioned by the man–
agement of that hotel to iind such an expert in New York
and happened to be in the lobby when the result of the
mission was announced. I sampled one of the newcomer's
first cocktails made on British soil.
Out in the Far East, the American Navy, true to tradi–
tion, did its share in spreading the gospel of the cocktail.