Toronto Temperance Society
At long, long last, they’re coming back. We’re talking cocktails here, magical concoctions as they were originally intended and enjoyed, pre-prohibition times. Some had been misplaced, others simply forgotten – although not so much in Cuba and certainly not in Japan.
Some of our drinks are new, yes, but the majority have been adapted from recipes that go back a hundred years and more. And some of those old beauties, of course, were only perfect to begin with and invited – demanded, even – no tweaking whatsoever. We’d have had to take a penalty if we had.
Mostly, then, we’re loving revivalists and the beauty there is that, with each re-creation, we allow you to taste a little piece of history. We’re going to get better at it, too. Already, we’re making many of our syrups and mixes according to the ancients and, as we continue to assemble essential ingredients, our constantly expanding repertoire will, one day soon, bring you such classics as The Aviation and The Last Word.
But a word or two of caution: Many of these drinks were originally created for tastes slightly different than today’s – tastes that have been worn down and altered by decades of the sodium and sugars that have colonized our food processing.
So, please, then, try thinking of us as somewhat of a spirit guide. Let us maybe break you in with some gentle introduction. We know there’s a place for these cocktails; we’re counting on there soon be a love.
We’d like to thank…
Well, for starters, we wouldn’t have been able to do this without our four “bibles” and the obviously swell guys who put them together. These would be The Bar-Tenders Guide (, by the iconic Jerry Thomas in 1876, The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock (1930), The Gentleman’s Companion (1939) by Charles H. Baker and Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up (1951).
With these four, you’ll never need another cocktail manual. They also provide the backbone for what we’re trying to do here, which, with great passion and care, is to rediscover, re-create and revive an appreciation for the cocktail.
But there’s also the new masters – the real live people who have taught us how to use ice, make tonic water, falernum and orgeat and have paved the way for us – and like-hearted souls – to set about reviving the classics: Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Greg Boehm, Darcy O’Neil, Jamie Boudreau, Dave Wondrich, Paul Clarke, Robert Hess and, of course, Audrey Saunders, Julie Reiner, Sasha Petraske and New York’s Angel’s Share, which really started it all.
Obviously, you can’t do something like this without the warm, eager and sharing nature of bartenders and bar-owners across the continent – New York and Seattle standing out. So much thanks, then, to Takaaki Hashimoto at B-Flat and Murray Stenson at the Zig-Zag, Nabil at Il Bistro and those enthusiastic two loons downstairs that early morning at Macao.
And you most certainly can’t get on without those closest to home, closest to the heart – Sandy and Mike, Nick, Hunter and Andy and Josh and the many others who helped nudge us along the way.