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18
OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK
hot coffee, as soon as it is made.
Just where cocktails leave off and other mixed drinks
begin it is difficult to determine. Some authorities would
make cocktails all mixed drinks which have to be
shaken~
and cause dissensions.
In
reproducing the Old Waldorf
Bar Book, I have followed in the main the classification
of cocktails therein made. Many other mixed drinks fall
into groups-determined, as a rule, by one or more of the
ingredients used, or the method of making. Others can
not be classified, and so are just listed alphabetically.
Before closing this dissertation on the products of the
American School of Drinking, one must say frankly that
so far as chemistry and logic are concerned, it would seem
that either has had little to do with the formulas of most
cocktails. The American School of Drinking, as it existed
in other days, was never that of France; and so far as
anybody has revealed, the rules of chemistry were never
considered in arriving at formulas, nor was any dietitian
consulted. Most American alcoholic concoctions exhibit
little regard for chemistry, either in theory or application.
In France, as Julian Street intimates in his "Wines," re–
cently published, the art of drinking has, in a sense, been
guided partly by the laws of chemical reactions. Genera–
tions of experts have determined which wines go best with
certain foods; which aid the appetite or digestion. Modera–
tion has usually been the keynote.
.. Americans, as a rule, drink partly for the taste, mostly
for the effect. Those who prefer the effect to the taste
like to get the same quickly. The cocktail, taken according
to general practice, is not sipped as is wine.
If
it is not
gulped, it is usually finished in three swallows, or at most
four. Few of us on this side of the Atlantic, when we face