Book Synopsis
The idea for Lost Cocktails came while researching another project about homesteading techniques (lostwitandwisdom.com). I was serendipitously finding cocktail guides and resources on bartending from the 1800s to the early 1900s in the pre-prohibition era. In these books I found a world of amazing and sometimes curious cocktail recipes and bartending techniques and tips that seemed too interesting to keep to myself.
Some of the interesting tips that I found:
• How to arrange your bar and attend to customers
• Lists of drinks that were expected to be memorized by an experienced bartender
• How to take a cork out of a bottle without a corkscrew
• Common measurements
• How to serve cocktails
• Equipment and stock for a first-class bar
• Bartending terminology
• Bitters recipes
I also found over 100 interesting cocktail recipes from the era such as the Alabazam, Barbed Wire, Bizzy Izzy High Ball, Brain Duster, Flutemaginley, Gibson Girl, Jack Frost Whiskey Sour... and many more. Cheers!