We all have a mental image of a bartender of yore — dapper, professional, quick to make it a double, able to relay a message from Jay Gatsby to Boss Tweed without moving his handlebar mustache. But few of us, save Rachel Maddow, know what those ancient cocktails — coolers, flips, cobblers, crustas, fixes, fizzes, and toddies — actually tasted like. Ready your glass: The Historic Libations Annual Holiday Event will blow your sober ignorance into next week. Featuring local dusty drinks like the Martinez cocktail, Gibson cocktail, and the Pisco Sour, the event honors legendary Palace Hotel bartender William T. “Cocktail” Boothby, who put everything he knew in his popular book, Cocktail Boothby's American Bar-Tender, which the 1906 fire nearly removed all traces of. Two copies survived, and now the book has been reissued by Anchor Distilling, making his wisdom, and his signature Boothby Cocktail, again known to all who care about such things (2/3 jigger whisky, 1/3 jigger Italian vermouth, 2 dashes orange bitters, and 2 dashes Angostura bitters). Also includes his less impressive “bartender commandments” (“No. VII: If you are troubled with sore feet, bathe them regularly.”)
Thu., Dec. 10, 6 p.m., 2009
