Sommelier Journal

PAGES (16) July 2008

BARTENDER Words of wisdom from the past Jim Meehan Jim Meehan helped Anthony Giglio compile recipes for two editions of Mr. Boston’s Bartending Guide and served as deputy editor of two Food and Wine Magazine Cocktail Books. An original bartender at New York’s Pegu Club, he also ran the cocktail program at Gramercy Tavern. Last year he put together a cocktail program for PDT, an East Village lounge where you may find him mixing drinks.

Here are Five Commandments to live by, from the writings of great bartenders of the past. A cocktail at New York City’s Milk & Honey bar in 2003 sent me searching for the holy grail of bartending. I found fragments of it, at least, in old bartending tomes. Many of the editions I had collected were just recipe books, filled with drinks I had never heard of, composed of ingredients I’d never seen. Some of the pre-Prohibition volumes were professional handbooks...