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6
OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK
the recipe for a "Dacqueri"-presumably intended for "Dai–
quiri," but whose formula would not be recognized as such
anywhere in Cuba, where the rum it contains is the national
drink. Not long ago, I made an examination of one
volume which, judging from the quantity of names dis–
played, offered a tremendous number of cocktail recipes
of startling variety. I found fewer than seventy whose
names and formulas were known to me. Out of that sev–
enty, the recipes for not as many as ten agreed with the
formulas of pre-war times that were in my possession. They
brought up Pickwickian memories.
"It depends, my lord," said
Mr. Weller,
during the
trial of Bardell
vs.
Pickwick, "upon the taste and fancy of
the speller."
Back in softer-boiled days and for more than twenty
years, New York boasted many well run and well known
bars, and one in particular that was famous all over the
world. Everybody from everywhere who wanted the best
of drinks, made according to the best traditions. of the
American School, found his way to it when he reached
New York and carried away memories ·of it.
In
far-off
Shanghai, in Peking, in Singapore, in Melbourne, in Cape–
town, in Johannesburg, in Aden, in Calcutta, an Amer–
ican traveler was sure to find in a local club or hotel
somebody who would boast of having had such-and-such
a cocktail in the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar.
If
the new ac–
quainta11ce was a Scot, he was apt to lick reminiscent chops
over the generous free lunch there dispensed.
The barmen in that historic dispensary-an even dozen
of them when good times made good business-had to
know what was what when it came to mixing and serv–
ing drinks. As at most first class bars of the period, all