(And indeed it was a typo, for John Dabney.) I moved a couple of people up from the lower list: Henry Ramos was enormously famous, as was Frank Meier, and both more so than many on the top list. Sam with G. Selmer Fougner, who founded the field of mixography as we know it (for better or worse). I added Richard Stoughton to thee list because his relentless advertising for his bitters and his instructions for their use (mixed with brandy, wine, ale, tea, whatever) put us on the road to the Cocktail, and much closer to the last exit than the first.
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Perhaps we should consider a different organizational scheme that separates out historical figures whom we feel only retroactively made an important contribution, such as helping us understand the past, even if they had little apparent influence upon it? E.g., Proulx.
I think that’s a good idea. I would probably move the end a little past 1999, too, to capture the three or four years of ferment before the craft cocktail explosion, but that’s very much a judgment call.
I went and tentatively marked with an asterisk those I believe to have been influential during their day. There are some I left unmarked because I’m not really competent to judge. Please feel free to rearrange or delete the markings—they’re just a first pass.
I took a stab at rearranging the names, this time into four buckets. Probably got some wrong.
I have attempted to draft summary justifications for the inclusion of each individual on the list. Some are a bit grasping.
Given that it already includes Richard Stoughton, would it make sense to include notable visionaries from the product side (legendary master distillers, etc.) in a proto-hall-of-fame list like this?
And not to make work for anyone, but I’d personally find dates (where known) to be helpful and instructive.
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Stoughton’s inclusion is due to the instant purl product he was pushing that was, in essence, a cocktail in all but name.
I’d love to see a similar directory of notable visionaries from the product side, although I‘d prefer to see that be a separate list, for various reasons.
I am feverishly marshaling all the dates for these people, along with related biographical and contextual essentials. The scale of this endeavor I significantly underestimated, but I’m getting there.
A variation on this topic, omitting the living, is now an exhibit at the Cocktail Kingdom Library web site. Still marshaling pictures and text on some of them, but it’s a nice start.
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Kudos for mentioning Shinichi Ikeda. I was a customer of Dale’s and a contemporary of Sasha’s. Shinichi is at that level, sometimes above.
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I took the liberty of adding Ciro Capozzi to the Wiki. Born on the Bay of Naples, he tended bar in Philadelphia and New York before working at the Cafe de Paris, Monte Carlo and then founding Ciro’s there. Ciro’s was the cocktail bar where the European aristocracy and business elite got acclimated to cocktails. In 1911, he sold out to a syndicate, keeping some role in the business; the syndicate went to to open equally-influential branches in Paris, London, Berlin, etc. etc. Harry McElhone was the opening bartender at the London branch.
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Fascinating! I’ve been wondering about the whole “Ciro’s” business for years. Will you be writing an article?
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There’s a big entry for Ciro’s in the Oxford Companion, but yeah, I should really write an article on him. He was a character.
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I actually looked in the Oxford, but Ciro’s did not get an index entry. I should’ve looked harder. Cool entry!
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Glad you liked it–Capozzi is a bit of an obsession with me. Unfortunately a full index for the book would have been nearly as long as the book, but Ciro’s is there in the subject index at the beginning of the book and Capozzi is in the index of names at the end.
Surely there must be a portrait of Ciro around somewhere!
There’s this stuff:
Wrote the first cocktail book from Boston, the first American drink book to contain the Dry Martini, and wrote some cooking books as well. Was apparently influential in the Boston scene, and according to two recent bar guests, he gave talks at Harvard (they had their parents’ signed copies of Muckensturm’s books after attending a talk Louis gave). Louis died in 1918 and never got to witness the Marliave continuing on as a speakeasy. What Prohibition couldn’t do to shut down that 19th century powerhouse, the Pandemic did.
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This is the current blurb we have for Muckensturm. That anecdote about him speaking at Harvard is intriguing! Thanks for the year of death. That enabled me to find this notice in the Boston Post:
BOSTON POST, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1918 SERVICES HELD FOR LOUIS MUCKENSTURM Funeral services for Louis Muckensturm, known far and wide as a Boston restaurateur, who died from the grip, were held yesterday in the Church of the Notre Dame des Victoires on Isabella street. Mass was said by the Rev. E. Bertram. was 42 years old, and was born in Alsace
Found cemetery:
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The cemetery doesn’t contain his plot location information and wants $10 mailed in with a request letter for them to find it. Buried in the same small cemetery as the Kennedy clan, various Boston mayors, and political figures. Too many plots to just meander, although the map does show a German section (depending on whether they considered Alsace was German or French…).
So far the biggest Boston cocktail-related “celebrity” grave that I’ve found is ice king Frederic Tudor’s which is in one of the cemeteries in downtown Boston. Sadly, not too many other pre-Prohibition Boston drink makers or related that I know of besides Tom Hussion (Locke-Ober bartender who the Ward 8 is attributed to) despite Boston being a very wet town.
Also, Louis wrote another book Louis’ Every Woman’s Cook Book. It was unclear which my guests inherited since both cook books have similar covers to the drink book (they said that it looked like a match set).
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