WOW Collectabledetective.com is Great

As a Bar Ware & Cocktail Shaker collector I'm always looking for new sources to find the stuff I'm looking for. The owner of this site collectibledetective.com actually found me through this blog & as I have said before..."It was all over". If you are a collector of anything this is what you are looking for! I have already spent Way Too Much Time there...LOL. There are literally thousands of links to every kind of antique or collectible you ever thought of. Like I said it's great.

So just click on link to go straight to Bar Ware. There are links to the Main page from there.

Have fun hunting & Cheers...

New Video from the Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium

I just received this video from Lindsey Johnson of The Lush Life. It's Steve Visakay, Mark Bigler, and myself talking about cocktail shakers and The Museum of the American Cocktail.
The video also features Dale DeGroff & Chris McMillian.
What a great time we had that day. Drinking Cointreau Cocktails and talking about Cocktail Shakers...

Vintage Shakers Symposium at MOTAC from Lush Life on Vimeo.

Lindsey and her staff did a wonderful job with this and I would like to say Thank You.
Well, I Hope everyone enjoys...Cheers!

Two Weeks after Tales of the Cocktail

Well it has been almost two weeks since Tales and I believe I have fully recovered.

The Vintage Bar Collectors Symposium went off without a hitch. We gave away bunches of cocktail shakers and bar ware. Well over the advertised $1000 worth.

There were collectors from all over the United States as well as a couple of foreign guest. It was a truly amazing time.

Stephen Visakay, Mark Bigler & myself gave our talks from behind a bar that was made in the mid 1800s. It was rescued from Lake Pontchartrain and is currently being restored for perminate display at The Museum of the American Cocktail.

Also, who knew that Cointreau and Peach Snapple would make a very tasty and refreshing cocktail.
They call it the Cointreau Kiss. There Slogan is Kiss & Tell.

It is very simple cocktail to make...1 1/2 oz Cointreau, 3 oz Peach Snapple.
Pour the Peach Snapple in a tall glass with ice and pour the Cointreau on top. How simple is that?

In days following our Symposium I attended several seminars like the History of Saloons in America with H. Joseph Ehrmann, David Wondrich, and John Burton. What many people don't understand about Tales is that it is not just a 5 day drinking fest. Oh don't get me wrong, plenty of cocktails are consumed but there is so much knowledge to gained at the same time from some of best and brightest mixologist and authors from around the world. Another example would be the seminar Cognac, from Vines to Shaker which gave a history of Cognac and explained some of the French laws that dictate how it is produced. That is one of the reasons Cognac is more expensive is because of government regulation.

Between seminars and all of the good food in the French Quarter, I tried to get some more Frequent Rider Miles at the Carousel Bar. Hey, if they served Vieux Carre cocktails on the Merry Go Round at the State Fair, I would ride it for days!
Well I guess I'm going to wrap this up for now, before I totally bore everyone to death. I just want everyone to think about attending Tales of the Cocktail next Year. It is an unbelivable time and you will not regret it....

Cheers

Tales of the Cocktail & The Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium

Well, it is only a few days until the 7th annual Tales of the Cocktail kicks off in New Orleans and I can hardly wait!

As I have talked about earlier, I will be on the panel of The Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium along with Stephen Visakay and Mark Bigler.
The event is being held at The Museum of the American Cocktail on Wednesday the 8th at 4:30. Mark your calender. This is one not to be missed.
http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/

We got very lucky this year to have Cointreau, the legendary orange liqueur, on board to showcase their new, simple but inventive, lip-smacking libation - the Cointreau Kiss. On behalf of every guest who tries a Cointreau Kiss, Cointreau will make a monetary donation to the Museum*. So, after the talks by Stephen, Mark and myself & while showing off your vintage items and getting appraisals, pucker up and have a Kiss!

The guys at the museum are calling this "The Cocktail Shaker Roadshow"

We will be giving away over $1000 in Bar Ware. Everything from cocktail shakers to vintage Napier shot devises. Below is just a couple that I am putting up. We will aslo have an amazing collection of shakers on hand to view.



Also tomorrow I will be on "The Straight Pour" with Ann & Paul Tuennerman and a whole host of other guest, talking about cocktails, cocktail shakers and of coarse Tales of the Cocktail. So I hope you can tune in Saturday 7/14/09 at 10:00 am to to listen. You can get the streaming program at http://www.wistradio.com/page.php?page_id=8069

So I hope everyone can join us Saturday for The Straight Pour & next week for Tales of the Cocktail.

Imagine me...Writing about Cocktails...

Well it has been a couple weeks since I put any thing up. So I thought it was about time. I been a little busy though because I have a new position. I am now the Dallas Cocktail Examiner for the online magazine Examiner .com.
Here is a link to my page http://www.examiner.com/x-12183-Dallas-Cocktails-Examiner

How did stumble on to this you ask? Well, as I am now unemployed, I do daily searches for job possibilities and one site, Craig's List, I found a posting for a writing job. I applied and look were I am now! A Cocktail writer...
It has been a lot of fun so far and I'm starting to get into the swing of this gig.

I hope my fans from this blog (both of you...LOL) will check out my articles and give me some feedback and ideas for new post.

Oh by the way, if you are going to be Tales of the Cocktail, drop me a note. Maybe I will do some interviews with attendees & participants. It will be fun!

Cheers & Happy Shaking...

Bombay Sapphire Holiday Glasses Revisted...

Well over the past couple of months, since I ran the post asking for help to date my collection of Bombay Holiday Glasses, I have had several people step forward to clarify several of the dates. One of these, I consider to be an expert since his company manufactured seven of the glasses since 2001. Peter Sciacca of 1 Source Signature Glassware Inc. sent me this picture that I assume is from there catalog.

There is only one I slightly disagree with and that would be the 2002 glass. I believe it is the twisted square stem. I got that one 2002. I also got another one, with Bombay Sapphire, printed on the stem in 2007 at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans at a Bombay Sapphire demonstration. When I asked Peter about this he did say that some sets use other glasses in VAP (Value Added Packaging). He believes they were made by Libby glass and was very quick to point out that 1 Sources glass is mouth blown, the Libbey glass is machine made and perhaps painted and that 1 Sources glass is colored with light cobalt sand.

Also you should really check out the 1 Source websites. They have some amazing glass ware. http://www.1sourceinc.com/ & http://www.disciacca.com/Default.aspx

Below is my collection that has now been updated... In conclusion I would like to thank every one that left comments and shared their knowledge. Sharing info with others is one of the things that keeps collecting fun.

Speaking of sharing knowledge...Be sure to check out Tales of the Cocktail. I will there again this at the Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium along with Stephen Visakay & Mark Bigler. We will be talking about the histories of Norma Bel Geddes, designer of the Manhattan Cocktail Shaker, The Napier Company, & the Zeppelin Cocktail Shaker. You will also be able to see and touch these shakers and many others that we will be bring to the event. We will also be raffling off over $1000 in bar ware & cocktail shakers from our personal collections. Of coarse will also be serving up a couple of cocktails. It is being held at The Museum of the American Cocktail. There are links on the right side to both Tales & the Museum. Admission to the Symposium also gets you in the Museum where Ted Haige (aka) Dr. Cocktail has put together a one-of-a-kind museum covering the history the cocktail in America.

Hope to see you there...

Tales of the Cocktail & the Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium

As many people know or may just be finding out the 7th Annual Tales of the Cocktail will be held in New Orleans from July 8th thru the 12th. I am honored to again be a part of this event. I will be on the panel of the Vintage Bar Ware Collectors Symposium. Hosting this event will be Stephen Visakay, author of Vintage Bar Ware, and along with Mark Bigler of www.CocktailShakers.com, we are going to talk about cocktail shakers, bar ware and of coarse cocktails. There will also be some some the top collectors from around the world. I am trying to take this event to new levels this year so I'm asking for your help. I am taking a pole on the top 10 collectible cocktail shakers. The ones below may not THE top 10 but it will give you a good start. If this all works out these shakers will be at our event. Yes, live and in person. To see, touch & hold (Maybe). The owners will be there to talk to about them also. So let the voting begin. Just leave a comment with your list...Thanks!














Above left is the Famous Manhattan set designed by Norman Bel Geddes and produced by Revere Copper & Brass Co. 1936.

Above on the right is the Golf Bag shaker from Derby Silver Plate Co. a division of International Silver. It was produced from 1925 to 1930.

Everyone should know this well dressed little fellow. The Penguin shaker by Napier from the 1930's.




On the right...Do you think it's time for a cocktail? Well I do if your shaking with the Maxwell Phillips Hourglass shaker made in the 1930's.

On the left is one of my favorite shakers. It is the Bubble set made by the Faber Co. in the 1930's unique & deco all in one.


On the right are the Zeppelins that are probably modeled after the Graf zeppelin. Made in the 1930's in Germany.

On the left is the Master In-Color shaker from England. Its Bakelite body makes it unique with silver trim and a rotating recipe top. It was made in the 1930s.

On the right is the wonderful "Shake a Leg" shaker made by West Virgina Specialty Glass Co. in 1937.

On the left is the 1938 Sheridan Empire Shaker made by the Revere copper & Brass Co. It is the pinnacle of art deco.

And last but not least is the beautiful Wallace Brothers silver plated rooster from 1928.

Well what is a Cocktail anyway?

I hope to get a lot of responses so I know who to bring to this party. That being Tales of the Cocktail.

See Ya there...

http://www.talesofthecocktail.com

The Pink Elephant

The other day I got to wondering, what was the history of the Pink Elephant. This being an appropriate thought just following New Years. As a Bar Ware and Shaker collector I see this image everywhere and just got to wondering.
I started my research with Wikipedia and here is what they had to say: "Seeing pink elephants", a euphemism for drunken hallucination. You can follow the link above to Wikipedia.
There's something about an Elephant, but it's unclear why pink elephants have been associated with drinking for a number of decades, but they are one of the more consistent images. One reference to seeing pink elephants and pink spiders as a drinking hallucination, attributed to the 1890s. In 1913 Jack London wrote in "John Barleycorn": "There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in funny papers."
For some reason, pink elephants were the most popular image for drinking during several decades, beginning in the '40s. Actually as you see above it started much earlier.
This image has sprung up all over the place in its history with Cocktail Shakers, Napkins, Coasters, Trays or just about anything else you can associate with drinking. There are even Pink Elephant Jokes.Guy Lombardo had a popular hit with the song in 1932 "Pink Elephants" composed by Mort Dixon and Harry Woods.
Pink elephants on the table.
Pink elephants on the chair.
Pink elephants on the ceiling,
Pink elephants ev'rywhere.
Now I'm through making whoopee, I raised my hand and swore
That I never intend to see those pink elephants any more.



Below Are the 1040s Dancing Pink Elephant (Left) Cocktail Shaker set and the 1950s recipe version (Right). Both of these were made by Hazel Atlas. Also pictured is a little Pink Elephant shot glass & a canape tray.
There is even a modern Version, pictured below. It is pretty easy to to find this shaker while the vintage shakers above are a little harder to find. While doing the research for this post I found numerous places to buy both. Check out http://cocktailshakers.com/ This is Mark Bigler's website of shakers he has for sale. He has a couple of Pink Elephant pieces for sale.
Then everyone should remember The Pink Elephant Dance from Dumbo. Check it out on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwNPaYoTY8
While you're watching the video you might want to sip a Pink Elephant Cocktail:

1/4 oc of Vodka

3/4 oc of Galliano

3/4 oc of Creme de Noyaux (Or Almond liqueur)

3/4 oc of Orange Juice

3/4 oc of Cream

Dash of Grenadine

Stir in mixing glass half filled with cracked ice and strain into 5 ounce champagne glass.

Well I guess that's about it for now on Pink Elephants. As you can see "They are Ev'rywehere"