Some Notes on Cocktails and Guns. Part One - Cocktails.

Just recently I bought a new feather duster; my old one had deteriorated beyond respectability. Not from use I hasten to add but from simply standing as decoration in a pot next to my ‘bar’. This latest model is quite magnificent being made of the proudest and glossiest black feathers from the tail of some far-eastern cockerel and it serves better than ever to inform all who visit that mine is indeed a ‘Cocktail Bar’. There are many references to drinks being called cocktails going back well into the 18th century but it is surely with the days of prohibition in America that they are most commonly associated. My own favourite concerns a woman barkeeper in a New York speakeasy who became aware that people were getting more drinks than they were paying for and so she dashed to the kitchen and plucked a handful of various coloured feathers from the poultry hanging there to use as markers for the clientele, giving out a fresh one with each drink. This might well be origin of the customary brightly coloured insignia-bearing stirring sticks that you get automatically put in your drink in any bar in the States. It’s quite alarming how many can quickly accumulate in front of you when being looked after by a good bartender. Early examples of these drink sticks are now highly collectable, particularly those from famous watering holes that no longer exist. My own preferred cocktails are the traditional Martini, made with gin not vodka and a true Manhattan Perfect made with both sweet and dry vermouth and Canadian Club. Each drink has an interesting history which is too long to be included here, save to say that the Martini was a late 19th century invention, the true version of which should be served with glass, gin and vermouth all at room temperature, the ice being added after the mix to release the juniper essences of the gin and the herbal infusions in the vermouth. Obviously it should be stirred and not shaken. In fact the drink ordered by James Bond to be “shaken not stirred” is correctly called a ‘Bradford’ so recorded in 1948. The Manhattan is also a 19th century concoction preceding the legend of it first being ordered by Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill’s mother, as something new for a presidential bash. Anyway thinking about speakeasies and prohibition leads to thinking about gangsters and then naturally to guns. From then on the train of thought diversifies to an awesome degree; from guns to cowboys and Colts and long-barrelled Buntlines. The latter so named after Ned Buntline the pseudonym of Edward Judson a writer and publisher of Western stories.  Then further back to percussion caps and flintlocks before them. When anyone mentions guns I am reminded of the very first item I bought at auction. I was eleven years old and sat on my dad’s shoulders at the back of the assembled crowd to bid for a pair of duelling pistols by John Twigg,.....To be continued.