In 1956, the United States Navy put it in writing: stay at a cocktail party for two or three drinks. The 1950s wrote down the start time, the length of the visit, the vermouth ratio and the look of the bar in the rumpus room, and never wrote down who made the drinks.
Along the way: a Levittown house and the GI Bill that backed it, a Dry Martini that went from half vermouth to one part in eleven, a vodka sold with the line “No Smell, No Taste,” and the guest who wasn’t drinking and the drink they were handed. Then the Hollywood and Oakland tiki bars, Donn Beach’s numbered bottles, Victor Bergeron’s shark story, a two-Zombie limit, the fight over the three-martini lunch, and a bar on Sunset Boulevard that opened eight days after President Kennedy said “It’s deductible” should pass from our scene.
Full show notes, research sources, and transcript at thealchemistsbar.com.
","author_name":"Shawn Spitaleri - Drinks History & Narrative Storytelling"}