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CONSTITUTIVE AND DERIVATIVE
15
they make interesting reading, can not be accepted as re–
liable."
So much for derivation and history. Now for the mean–
ing of cocktail. The Standard Dictionary gives it as
"[U.S.] A drink made of spirits mixed with bitters, sugar
and flavor."
Well, that's sufficient to start with. But it was not a
speakeasy definition during prohibition, and millions of
Americans have grown up with very different ideas.
In
the Old Waldorf Bar Book, bitters of one kind or other
was considered a necessary ingredient of most Gin cock–
tails. The favorite was Orange Bitters, which appears in
something like one hundred different recipes. A distant
second was Angostura. Then there were Calisaya, Boone–
kamp, Boker's, Amer Picon, Hostetter's, Pepsin, Peychaud,
Fernet Branca, and so on. The Bitters was used in small
quantities, ordinarily described as "one dash" or "two."
But Bitters used to contain alcohol and prohibition made
most brands illegal to import. One well known firm
which specialized during prohibition in importing liquors
whose alcoholic content had been reduced until they could
be brought in as "flavoring extracts," told me it had not
imported Orange Bitters in fourteen years.
The original Old Waldorf Bar Book contained almost
three hundred cocktail recipes. That means more than ap–
pears, for of cocktails made with Vermouth there were
frequently two variants, an ordinary and a "dry"--or
"sec."
That was particularly true where the recipe called
for Italian Vermouth. Using French Vermouth instead,
the result was a "dry" cocktail, one that was not sweet
and a better appetizer. Certain barmen claimed to make a
dry cocktail simply by increasing the proportion of Gin.