On this day in 1939, The Gentleman’s Companion, a unique cocktail guide by Charles H. Baker Jr. was unleashed on the drinking public. Cocktail guides, then and now, are generally dull and derivative affairs with as much oomph as car repair manuals, but Baker succeeded in pushing the form into an entirely new dimension, wrapping each recipe with an exotic story and often a strong dose of drinking wisdom. Baker believed a vast, shimmering web embraces the world, connecting all the Right Sort of People, and that web is called Booze. Like a crafty spider, he skittered along that web, diligently gathering recipes from every corner of the globe, then laid them out in a unique patois that is a wild mix of high-toned Victorian dash and hard-boiled world-wise banter undershot with a rich vein of Deep South crackerese. The drinking world owes Mr. Baker a great debt. Not only for heroically rescuing cocktails tight-roping over the black abyss of history, but gathering them in such a way that elevates drinking from a sedentary sport, as many imagine it to be, to one of movement, mystery, and most of all, adventure.
I like this one. Thanks.