Pre-Prohibition Bartenders and Their Libations

Foreword:  One way of approaching pre-Prohibition alcohol is to concentrate  on the cocktails of those times.  My one foray into that territory, to co-write a celebrity drinks recipe book, proved to be too complicated and the idea was dropped.  Now the Louisiana State University press has forged ahead with a series devoted to cocktails associated with New Orleans.  A just-published slim volume entitled “The French 75”  by John Maxwell Hamilton reveals how much history a cocktail can reveal.  It has spurred me to provide here brief vignettes of three notable American bartenders of the 19th and early 20th Centuries and the drinks associated with their names.

Orsamus Ward:  America’s First Celebrity Bartender.   Born in a bucolic corner of Massachusetts, a young man with the unusual name of Orsamus Willard (1792-1876) became America’s first celebrity bartender, earning a reputation that spread far beyond New York's City Hotel. Caricatured here, Willard went from farm boy to a reputation as the “The Napoleon of Bar-Keepers.”

City Hotel

Starting as an office boy about 1811, Willard quickly impressed hotel management with his energetic and intelligent approach to his duties.  Able to write with either hand, his dexterity was noted as a skill that, accompanied by his outgoing personality and “urbane and courtly” manners, eventually fitted him to become the posh hotel’s principal bartender, a position he held for almost 27 years.  

An 1894 history of the Willard family was lavish in its description of Orsamus’ abilities:  “He acquired a wide reputation for…His never failing memory of names, persons, and events.  He…possessed in a remarkable degree the power of giving politely prompt and satisfying answers to the multifarious questions of guests, without interrupting the bookkeeping or other business details upon which he might be engaged.”

Just as important, Willard could whip up one helluva good cocktail. This from one patron: ‘Willard was one of the first in the city to concoct fancy drinks, and he introduced the mint-julep as a bar drink,’ frequently mixing them up three or four at a time.”  Among his other specialties were Whiskey Punch, Apple Toddy, and an Extra-Extra Peach Brandy.  An English traveler observed (with some exaggeration) that Willard’s name was “familiar to every American, and to every foreigner who has visited the States during the last thirty years [as] the first master of his art in the world.”   The result was his anointment as the “Napoleon of Bar-Keepers.”

Jerry Thomas was “King” of American Bartenders.  Described as “a gentleman all ablaze with diamonds,” Jeremiah P. “Jerry” Thomas (1830-1885) during his lifetime was a gold miner, (minor) Broadway impresario, art collector, inventor, gambler, reigning monarch of American bartenders, and the author of the nation’s first drinks recipe book.  Thomas’ “Bar-Tender’s Guide” published in 1862 during the Civil War, is still in print, available from multiple sources.  His signature cocktail was the “Blue Blazer.”

In his early 20s and restless, Thomas moved  to New York City in 1851 and opened a saloon below P.T. Barnum’s American Museum.  It was the first of four he would run in New York City during his peripatetic lifetime  He wore flashy jewelry and his solid silver bar tools and cups were embellished with gem stones.  Thomas became famous for the showmanship he brought to his bartending.

Thomas developed elaborate flashy techniques of mixing cocktails, sometimes while juggling bottles, cups and mixers..  His signature drink, depicted here, was the “Blue Blazer,” a fiery concoction thrown from glass to glass, as shown below.  Later he would claim the invention of the “Tom & Jerry.” Thomas also has been credited, probably erroneously, with the original martini.  His "Bartender's Guide" was a first in the field.

In 1885 while running a Manhattan saloon, Thomas, 55,  died of a stroke.  His death occasioned obituaries around the country, particularly in the cities in which he had worked.  The New York Times opined that he was the Big Apple’s best known barkeep and “was very popular among all classes.”  Thomas was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

“The Ideal Bartender” Was Black Tom Bullock.  Born in Louisville, Kentucky, not long after the Civil War, Tom Bullock (1872-1964) was the son of former slaves who learned his bartending skills at the local Pendennis Club.  The use of African American bartenders was a Southern tradition, not replicated in northern states and Bullock made the most of it.  Honing his skills in a variety of venues, he finally became chief bartender at the exclusive St. Louis Country Club.  There he attracted influential patrons and a reputation that spread far beyond Missouri.  

A playful 1913 editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch contended:   “Who was ever known to drink just a part of Tom’s? Tom, than whom there is no greater mixologist of any race.”   With the help of men like George Herbert Walker Sr.,

pater familias of American presidents and August Busch of Budweiser fame, in 1917 Bullock was able to publish his drinks recipe book, entitled “The Ideal Bartender.”  Now well more than a century old, it has never been out of print.

Bullock became particularly famous for his Mint Juleps. “The Ideal Bartender”contains two recipes – Kentucky Style and St. Louis Style. The former is the familiar Mint Julep he probably mastered at the Pendennis Club. The other recipe includes gin, lemon, lime juice, and grenadine, a non-alcoholic bar syrup. In a nod to Busch, “The Ideal Bartender” also includes a drink called Golfer’s Delight that used Bevo, a non-alcoholic beer that Anheuser-Busch developed in anticipation of Prohibition.

During the “dry” years, Bullock was forced to giving up openly dispensing alcohol.He remained employed for several years at the St. Louis Country Club performing unspecified duties.  He disappears from the public record after 1927. It is generally believed that Bullock lived until 1964, but almost nothing is known about his later years.  His drinks manual remains  his legacy and a continuing reminder of this extraordinary, indeed, ideal,  bartender.  

Notes:  Longer articles on each of these bartenders may be found elsewhere on this website:  Willard, June 13, 2022;  Thomas, Oct 12, 2022, and Bullock, July 7, 2022 (The last a reprint of an article researched and written by Michael Jones for the Louisville Tourist Bureau.)  Finally a word about the new book that generated this post, “The French 75” by John Maxwell Hamilton.  I recommend it for a delightful romp through the history, lore and many manifestations of this iconic cocktail.  Just published, the book is available from the LSU Press and Amazon Books. The author is interviewed at https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/10/the-enduring-legacy-of-the-french-75-cocktail/.