Vintage 1950's Cocktail Mixer Rare Slide Rule Bar Guide Mixing Manual Rare

Description

Cocktail slide-rules are mixing guides that consist of a cardboard or plastic outer sleeve with a numbered list of drinks, various components, and a symbol key printed on it, as well as cut-out windows through which appears the sliding inner chart of measurements and preparations. A user would slide the inner chart to the number of the drink recipe desired and a “guide” of numbers and symbols corresponding to liquid proportions and preparations would appear in a window.
These were usually used as advertising giveaways, with companies printing their logos somewhere on the outer sleeve. There was the “Cocktail Mixer,” copyright 1953 and the “Cocktail Mixing Guide,” copyright 1964, both by the Perrygraf Corporation, which is still in business.
There were usually recipes for 100 cocktails, 50 per side, which considering the relatively small amount of space allowed for potential ingredients is pretty impressive and substantiates the idea that the majority of classic cocktails consisted of relatively few ingredients. This is an important idea, especially given the tendency of some modern craft cocktail designers to overload their drinks with too many ingredients (I can soapbox about this, drawing parallels to the proliferation of flavored vodkas in the 1990s – 2000s, and earlier froufrou drinks of the 1980s, but I’ll save that for a later post). I like that the inventors of the “Cocktail Computer” claim that the majority of classic cocktails rely upon just 24 ingredients and, if we are to judge by the cocktail slide-rule, even fewer ingredients are necessary to construct a pantheon of mid-century cocktails. The Perrygraf slide-rules list gin, whiskey, Italian and French vermouths, scotch, vodka, Benedictine, brandy, Bacardi rum, rye, absinthe, Chartreuse, “curacoa” (sic), maraschino, sherry, claret, Jamaica rum, crème de “cocoa” (sic), crème de menthe, Cointreau, and “Prunell”(prunelle, a liquor made from sloe, the fruit of the blackthorn bush), which is included just for the classic cocktail the Beau Brummel (which I think warrants a future blog post). In other words, just 21 types of booze (err, maybe 20 since Prunelle barely counts with just one cocktail).
But I don’t want to take the idea of fewer ingredients too far, because that road leads us to such silly things as H. i. Williams 1943 book 3 Bottle Bar (“Hospitality Poured from 3 Bottles, The cost fits any budget,” NY: M.S. Mill Co), which argues for a complete bar that consists of only whisky, gin, and dry white wine. My general point is that the cocktail slide-rules offered a surprising wealth of possible cocktails with relatively few components.
Of the cocktails listed on the Perrygraf slide-rules there are quite a few unfamiliar to me, though many ended up being known cocktail but with different names. Of these, though, is the Smart Alec, a promising brandy cocktail that is similar to the Bijou. It is an ounce each of brandy, Chartreuse, and Cointreu, two dashes of Angostura, stirred and strained up. I'm still hound-dogging the history of this cocktail. I've found it as the Sir Knight cocktail in the ubiquitous Angostura Professional Mixing Guide that appeared first in 1947 and peppered the market in the 1960s (available here via Archives.com; I've seen stacks of these little books in vintage stores). And whereas it doesn't show in earlier prohibition and post-prohibition cocktail books (though I've just done a cursory search) like Jack's Manuel, The Stork Club, or Meier's Artistry of Mixing Drinks, it does show up as the Smart Alec in Walter Winchell's syndicated newspaper column "Walter Winchell On Broadway" for June 4th, 1932, a year before the repeal of prohibition: "Before I forget: Here's the Smart Alec cocktail -- one part cognac, one part chartreuse, one part cointreau, dashes of bitters to dull the burn. Don't waste ice on it!" It is listed in the Cocktail Database with yellow Chartreuse and orange bitters, but in my recreation, aided by Will Hollingsworth at Cleveland's Spotted Owl, we used dry curacao rather than Cointreau, green Chartreuse, Angostura (as per the slide-rule) and a flamed orange peel over the drink. The result was delicious, well-balanced, and with a pleasing roseate amber color. Personally, I found it nicer than a Bijou and much less cloying than a Last Word. I remade it at home with Armagnac, Cointreau, and Fee Brothers barrel-aged orange bitters and it was just a bit too astringent and much too orangey. I think that the Angostura and curacao are the way to go here.