The Aperitif Guy

We often think of the 1920s as the heyday of cocktail drinking. This is partly because the prohibition of the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol in the USA, from 1917 to 1933, drove many wealthy Americans to seek refreshment in the hotels and restaurants of the European capitals. The strength of mixed drinks, and their endless variations of flavour and colour, seemed to fit with the mood of cities rediscovering joy after the horrors of the Great War. The leisured classes relished the fun and frivolity of cocktails and could afford to patronise bars that employed expert cocktail waiters, who were starting to be feted as celebrities.  That's not where cocktails began, though. The earliest known evidence of the word being used to refer to alcohol comes from the Balance and Columbian Repository , a New York newspaper, when the editor answered the question "What is a cocktail?" thus:      "Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any...

Regular readers of my musings will know by now just how much importance I place on a good aperitif. Indeed, it has become the quickest and easiest way to get the measure of a restaurant for me. Walking into a new establishment for the first time, we wonder "Am I going to love this? Is it for me? Will it be my new favourite or one I'll wish I hadn't bothered with?" Order an aperitif and see how they respond. It'll tell you almost everything you need to know about the restaurant. There have been restaurants where the waiter has shown us to our table, handed us a menu and walked away before we could speak. This tells me they're not expecting us to take our time here. They'll come back to take our order, but any drinks we order then will arrive with the starter. Best order a mid-price bottle of white wine and clear off as quickly as every other diner. They're not ready for customers who will lazily make their way through a meal, relishing every tas...