What Shall We Drink? - Popular Drinks, Recipes And Toasts

What Shall We Drink Popular Drinks, Recipes and Toasts BY MAGNUS BREDENBEK NOTE. The word gum frequently used in the volume is merely granulated or powdered sugar brought to a boil but not allowed to boil in enough water to make a moderately thick syrup Publisher Note For thirty-five years the author of this volume has been a newspaper man and editor, contacting life in all its myriad phases and gathering a vast store of material on many subjects, upon which he has drawn with excellent effect in the preparation of this authoritative work. He has interviewed scores of experts of the old day and the new experts, it need hardly be added, in the supremely social art of mixing liquors. He presents formulas devised by the most famous maitres-de-hotel and chefs here and abroad, drinks honored by recognition as the favorites of America and the Continent. His simplicity of style, his explicit instructions, and his warm, genial interest in the reader and the readers problems, clear up and make easily understandable a subject which has become something of a lost art during the years of Prohibition. His book will find a place on the friendly shelf of every host and hostess, as a guide in the social accomplishment of mixing drinks and serving them at the right time, in the right manner, and with the right foods. To professional dispensers of the cup that cheers, this book will prove an indispensable aid, since it combines technical information with the simplicity desired by the layman. To you all, hosts and professional hosts, and in a spirit of real service, this book is offered with the confidence that all good companions of the glass will appreciate its suggestions and enjoy many a convivial hour in putting them to a test. Heres to the hostess May she be hung, drawn and quartered May she be hung with jewels, drawn in a coach and four, and quartered in a palace When Prohibition placed its stranglehold on our nation, it doomed for more than thirteen years the real art and eti- quette of drinking. Books, articles, advertising and broadcasting concerning liquor, and all formulas for mixing drinks once popular in all branches of society, were placed under Federal ban. From the hands of law-abiding experts the liquor business passed into the hands of novices from the underworld. The speakeasy and night club came along to replace the legitimate dispensaries and to sell surreptitiously liquors and needled beers of most questionable origins. Concoctions were served under titles never before known to the drinking world. Most of these drinks were abominable, mixed by men who did not know even the rudiments of the art. They will pass into the oblivion whence their inventors sprang. Gone is their influence over the drinking habits of a nation which, before the World War, was headed for temperance and which was plunged by Prohibition not only into intemperance, but into vicious excesses. America today must unlearn all the follies she was taught in the name of Bacchus and must learn all over again what she has unlearned. My design, therefore, is not to encourage drunkenness- we have had plenty of that during the heyday of boot- legging-but to guide drinkers of the new day back into the safer channels of the old days to make possible the safe home mixing of delectable beverages to promote temperate rather than inordinate drinking to help host and hostess with their problems of what to serve, when to serve and how to serve the now legal liquid refreshments of a re-emancipated America. And, as toasts always are in demand, I have compiled a carefully selected potpourri of those which long have been considered the gems of the festive hour, gleaned from many sources. To these I have ventured to add some of my own creation. For convenience, these toasts have been placed at the end of this volume and will be found to cover almost any need...