On the Wagon? These are the Jerry Thomas Drinks for you.

The Jerry Thomas Project is the re-creation of all of Jerry Thomas’ cocktails from Jerry Thomas’ Bar-Tenders Guide: Receipts for Mixing in their purest form. Jerry Thomas is considered America’s father of mixology publishing the first cocktail book in 1862.

I want to apologize for not posting much the last couple of weeks. We opened another restaurant this week, Mars Bistro – so it’s been a bit chaotic and hasn’t left me much time for working on drinks, alas.

In honor of my dear friend who has gone on the wagon, I thought it prudent to make Jerry Thomas’s temperance drinks. My friend, by the way, is the only person I know who looks worse for the wear when he is not drinking – unshaven, unshowered, with a trucker’s cap and wad of chew. Rather than looking like he hasn’t been drinking for days, it appears that’s all he’s been up to.

Anyhow, the valerian root arrived for the tincture and if you have never been in the presence of valerian root before – it’s scent is a noxious concoction of Limburger cheese and baby puke. Nonetheless, I did take some before bed the other night to test out it’s supposed sleep properties and god damn it knocked me right out. Impressive.

After making the temperance drinks – I believe that people should have been even angrier about prohibition because most of them were terrible or just truly boring.

Milk and Seltzer

½ glass milk
½ glass seltzer

I’ve never liked drinking milk on it’s own that much, and adding seltzer water made it worse.

Saratoga Cooler

1 ounce lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar
6 ounces of gingerale
(Thomas calls for two lumps ice, which he states to stir in and then remove)

Plain Lemonade

1 ounce lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
4 ounces of water
3 pieces of orange
dash of raspberry syrup
garnish with fruit of the season
shaved ice

Soda Lemonade

1 ounce of lemon juice
1 ½ teaspoon sugar
4 ounces of soda water
2 to 3 lumps of ice

Egg lemonade

1 ounce of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 fresh egg
2 – 3 lumps of ice

Orgeat lemonade

1 ounce of lemon juice
1 ounce of orgeat syrup
4 ounces of water
(Thomas makes this drink too sweet with orgeat syrup and sugar)

Fine Lemonade for Parties

24 ounces of lemon juice
rind from 8 lemons
2 pounds of sugar
1 gallon of boiling water

Rub the rinds of the lemons into the sugar until they have absorbed all of the oil. Put the remainder in a jug, add the lemon juice and pour over the boiling water.

Strain through cheesecloth.

The lemonade will have it’s flavor greatly improved by beating four egg whites into it.
(I found this lemonade to be a little sweet for my taste, if it is too sweet for you just add lemon juice to taste.)

Soda Nectar

1 ounce of lemon juice
4 ounces of water
3 teaspoons of sugar
½ teaspoon of baking soda

Nectar for dog days

Lemon ice
Soda water

How to make lemon ice
Fill an ice cube tray with cold water. Add lemon zest to each of the cubes before you set to freeze.

Soda Cocktail

1 teaspoon sugar
2 dashes angostura bitters
1 bottle plain soda
3 or 4 lumps of ice

If you want to try any of these, I liked the orgeat lemonade the best followed by the soda cocktail (but I adore bitters and soda). Otherwise, if you happen to make the egg lemonade – I’d just use the white. I find the yolk to have a little too much scent for my taste.

To check out other Jerry Thomas Project recipes – click here.