So what exactly is The 5 O’Clock Hour Blog going to be all about…???
Well, let me start by saying that we are not saving lives here…
Although there has been many an evening when a well made Martini has indeed brought me back from the very brink.
What we would like to do however, is help our readers discover, or in the case of us old-timers, rediscover;
the history,
rituals,
gadgets and gizmos,
techniques,
recipes,
food,
drink,
clothing,
music and all of the other wonderful things associated with a lifestyle that was once, and is rapidly becoming again… a treasured part of the American way of life…
The Cocktail hour…
But we are not just going to talk about the consumption of alcohol…
The 5 o’clock hour is so much more than that…First, it’s as much a state of mind as anything else…
Steeped in ritual and tradition, that are as important to the event as looking both ways before crossing the street…
It’s the time of day for reflection…
A time to relax and unwind…
To take stock of the past 24 hours…
To put the days wrongs, right…
As you slowly pour the liquid from the bottle into your shaker, your pace slows…
You have just exited the four lane super highway that has been your busy day…
And now you find yourself slowly driving along a quiet back country road…
As you empty the contents of the shaker…Into your well chilled glass
You can feel a warm summer breeze on your face…
You take that first sip…
You are at once, civilized…
We will be looking back at a simpler time, before the advent of cell phones and the internet.
At an age when doing a “selfie” meant, Masturbation!
We will be sharing with you the 5 O’Clock Hour’s vast collection of vintage and antique Barware…As well as many of our Barware “oddities” that would certainly be banned in todays politically correct society…
We will review various brands of spirits…
Share recipes and “How To’s”…
And each week we will post a link to a NEW 5 O’Clock Hour video on YouTube…
This link will always appear in our Blog…
So sit back, fix yourself your favorite cocktail and enjoy…
To begin with, I think we need to clarify exactly what a cocktail is…
I mean, depending on who you ask and during what period of history you asked it, the answers vary widely…
For example, the word may have originally referred simply to a roosters tail…
Others will tell you that a Cocktail once alluded to the practice, by which a ginger suppository was used on a horse, so as to make the animal cock up its tail, to make it look more like that of a Rooster’s…
I’m assuming here that the ASPCA and animal activists groups were not quite as active during that time period…???
Now when I was growing up, almost every restaurant you went to had on the menu what was called; “Fruit Cocktail”…
This was a small dish with tiny bits of fruit featuring all the colors of the rainbow, cut into pieces about half the size of a dime…And enveloped in a thick syrup that was sweet enough to make your toes curl…
Small wonder why this item is seldom seen on restaurant menus today.
And of course there is the Shrimp Cocktail…Back in the day, six shrimp were considered a standard portion. Where as today I have seen them served with as few as three…
Now these of course are LARGE shrimp, about the size of small lobsters but usually with the consistency nearing that of a rubber glove.
When I was a kid, if I had a question my dad would always tell me to;
“Look it up in the Dictionary!”…
To that end, The Oxford English Dictionary will tell you that the first recorded use of the word cocktail, as a beverage was in the United States… and appeared in 1803 in a publication known as, the Farmers Cabinet…
This particular reference, however, seems to have referred to a drink that was non-alcoholic in nature…
The first time the word cocktail was associated with an alcoholic beverage was believed to be in 1806, in something called the Balance & Columbian Repository …
Where editor Harry Croswell wrote of the cocktail: “A stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters…”
Now we’re getting someplace…
Cheers…
And have look at Episode #1 THE COCKTAIL on our Youtube channel: