Art comes in many forms: drawing, painting, photography, novel writing, music, and even gardening.

Mixing cocktails is an art form. Look closely at a five-layered pousse-café. Let the rainbow of pastel-like colors saturate your senses. Watching a skilled bartender make this drink is like watching Renoir paint “Luncheon of the Boating Party.”

The Golden Age of the cocktail was from about 1870 to the early 1900’s. Barmen back then usually made everything from scratch. Mark Twain wrote: “The cheapest and easiest way to become an influential man and be looked up to by the community at large was to stand behind a bar, wear a cluster diamond pin, and sell whiskey. I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher rank than any other member of society.”

This was also the beginning of celebrity bartenders. These barmen had their stools filled every night.

In 1862, Jerry “the Professor” Thomas, a famous and legendary barman, published one of the first cocktail books, “How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivants Companion.”

Thomas was born in Watertown, New York in 1830. By 1849, he was in San Francisco, and he also had a bar in New York under P.T. Barnum’s Museum. In 1853, he tended bar at Mill’s House in Charleston, then moved to Chicago. In St. Louis, he was head bartender at Planter’s House. He also opened a saloon in New Orleans, then San Francisco, and then moved back to New York again as head bartender at the Metropolitan Hotel.

In 1859, he traveled Europe with a custom made four-thousand dollar solid sterling silver bar tools set. Everywhere he went, he demonstrated his bartending flair. The “Professor” was probably the world’s first jet-set bartender.

His most famous drink was the Blue Blazer. This was equal parts scotch and water. He would ignite the scotch and pour it back and forth between two tumblers so it would appear to be one continuous stream of fire.

He died of apoplexy in 1885, at the age of 55.

Another famous bartender from that period was Harry Johnson.
In the 1880’s, Johnson wrote the “New and Improved Illustrated Bartender’s Manual,” which included a chapter on how to work and act as a professional behind the bar; and he ran the Little Jumbo on the Bowery.

John Schiller, another legend, opened the Sazerac Coffee House in 1859. Schiller was an agent for the Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils in Angouleme, his place was famous for brandy cocktails.

The Sazerac was born here, but over time, bourbon became the main ingredient, paired with simple syrup, bitters, and a Herbsaint-rinsed glass.

Henry Ramos bought the Imperial Cabinet Saloon in New Orleans in 1888 and introduced the Ramos Gin Fizz (gin, cream, egg white, lemon and lime juice, simple syrup, orange-flower water, and club soda).

Later, Ramos moved to the Stag Saloon. During Mardi Gras, his bar was usually so busy that he had to employ a couple of dozen bartenders to shake his fizzes.

January 17, 1920, brought the beginning of Prohibition, and the start of the exodus of American bartenders to Europe. Although this was the start of Prohibition, it was also the start of the glamorization of cocktails. In Paris, there was Harry’s New York Bar. And in London, the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel.

One of the most famous bartenders in Paris during the 1920’s was Jimmy Charters. Everyone who was anyone in Paris at that time knew Charters from the bars of Montparnasse. Charters was born in Rhyl, Wales in 1897. Before he became a bartender, he was a professional boxer. One of his first jobs in the restaurant business was as assistant waiter in the Railway Hotel in Liverpool. He was told that to be a headwaiter he had to learn French. There was eventually an exchange of waiters with the Hotel Meurice in Paris. After a while, he wound up at the Hotel Massena in Nice as assistant to the barman. But after gaining experience at various establishments, he went back to Paris.

During his apprenticeship, Charters discovered that he enjoyed bartending more than waiting on tables. He eventually was hired at the Dingo as assistant barman and waiter. That was the beginning of his long career as a bartender in the Quarter. Over time he served Ernest Hemingway, Silvia Beach, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Harpo Marx, Modigliani, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, etc. His customers were the “who’s who” list of 1920’s Paris.

In 1936, he published “This Must Be The Place,” later republished as “Hemingway’s Paris,” with an introduction by Ernest Hemingway. Charters wrote this with Morril Cody. This is one of the best memoirs of a bartender ever published.

In “Hemingway’s Paris” Charters writes, “I have always believed success behind the bar comes from an ability to understand the man or woman I am serving, to enter into his joys or woes, make him feel the need of me as a person rather than a servant.”

Hemingway based Mike and Brett, two of the main characters in “The Sun Also Rises,” on real people who were regulars at Charters’ bar. Of Hemingway, Charters wrote: “Hemingway came to my bar frequently (he was no white-winer!).”

The Bloody Mary was also invented during this period.

At Harry’s Bar in Paris, Fernand “Pete” Petiot came up with this classic in 1921. In 1934, he went to New York to work at the King Cole Room in the St. Regis Hotel.

Harry Craddock, another bartending legend, worked at the Holland House in New York. When Prohibition began, he went to London to ply his craft. He started at the Savoy Hotel, where he worked from 1920 to 1939. He took over from Ada Coleman, who was the head bartender from 1903 to 1924.

In 1930, Craddock published “The Savoy Cocktail Book.” To this day, it is a much sought-after book for classic recipes.

Victor Bergeron, known as “Trader Vic,” opened a restaurant in the1930’s in Oakland California. It had a tropical island theme.

Prohibition had ended at 5:32 p.m., Dec. 5, 1933.

In 1944, Trader Vic came up with a Polynesian style cocktail. A friend from Tahiti tasted it and said, “Mai Tai, Roa Ae,” Tahitian for “Out of this world- the Best.” And the Mai Tai was born, consisting of Jamaican rum, orange curacao, rock candy syrup, French Garnier orgeat, fresh lime juice, and fresh mint.

Don Beach had a restaurant called Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood in 1934, and here the Zombie was created, with light and dark rum, apricot brandy, lime juice and pineapple juice, bitters, and 151-proof rum.

Hainanese-Chinese bartender Ngiam Tong Boon worked the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel in Singapore in 1915. He came up with a tropical drink called the Singapore Sling. Another invention, the Million Dollar Cocktail, was mentioned in “The Letter,” a short story by Somerset Maugham.

Ngiam Tong Boon kept his recipes in the hotel safe. His recipe is still on display there in the hotel’s museum.

In the 1940’s, Johnny Brooks presided over the Stork Club Bar in New York. The Stork Club was a popular hangout for celebrities, most notably Ernest Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich. Hemingway was well known on both sides of the pond. Johnny Brooks also wrote a book called “My 35 Years Behind Bars.”

There are two basic ways to learn how to become a professional bartender: bartending schools and on-the-job training.

Bartending schools teach you the basics, and usually find you your first job, but you’ll probably learn more in your first week on the job than what you came to expect from bar school.

On-the-job training comes from restaurants and bars that will hire a bartender who has no experience. Since you have no experience, they won’t pay much, but you get training and experience, then you can apply somewhere else as an experienced bartender.

In Jerry Thomas’ time, the finer saloons required a long apprenticeship, usually about two years. The barmen back then also made their own syrups, mixes, and bitters.

Today, we have many super-star bartenders, including Colin Peter Field, the head bartender at Bar Hemingway at the Ritz in Paris.

In 1998, Bar Hemingway was named the World’s Greatest Bar by Forbes Digital Tool Internet magazine, and Field was named the World’s Greatest Bartender. Forbes named him again, in 2001, as the Greatest Bartender in the World.

In 2001, Field published “Cocktails of the Ritz Paris.” In it he quotes Le Figaro newspaper as citing “the head bartender as one of the most creative people in France, comparing him with architects, dancers, chefs and writers.”

Dale DeGroff, author of “The Craft of the Cocktail,” took over New York’s Rainbow Room in 1987. He currently leads bartending seminars all over the country, has been written about in magazines and newspapers, and taught at the Culinary Institute of America and appears in their bartending video. Probably the most revered mixologist in all the world, DeGroff’s personal web site is www.kingcocktail.com.

Lastly, Mark Pollman of St. Louis, has also been written up in several newspapers and magazines. In 1998, Mark published “Bottled Wisdom,” a collection of quotes about cocktails, drinking, and saloons. Pollman will likely be included in any history of bartenders, especially in St. Louis, traditionally a historic drinking town.

Next time you order a cocktail in a bar, remember that the bartender serving you comes from an honorable and historical working profession.

- Written by Nicholas Z. Wineriter (NZW52@aol.com)