September is Virginia Spirits Month! (No, really, I’m not kidding, you can read about it online.) In honor of that, I thought I’d share a slideshow of some favorite spirituous images from our cocktail history materials. This is something I have as a background display for events and it highlights a lot of fun items (and some fun history!) about cocktails and their ingredients.
(the link will open a pdf of the slideshow to view or download)
And for all you Virgos out there, here’s a c.1980s French postcard with a festive cocktail on it!
This is part of series with one postcard for each astrological sign. They all seem a bit…overly garnished? One includes an entire walnut! This one includes lemon, a flower, and seeming an entire tree twig? And since Libra is just around the corner:
Figs and pears, anyone? (Actually, this rather reminds me of some of Jerry Thomas’ ornately garnished drinks of the 1860s…)
Surprisingly (or perhaps not so), cocktails have been tied to zodiac signs and astrology for quite some time. In the 1960s and 1970s, Southern Comfort produced several small cocktail recipe pamphlets that ran along that theme. And we even have a 1940 book called Zodiac Cocktails; Cocktails for All Birthdays. It includes recipes and the names of famous people born under the same signs! (That’s my sneak preview of it, since I hope to give it a post of its own one day soon–stay tuned!)
In the meantime, continue to enjoy Virginia Spirits Month. Try something new or sip on an old favorite. After all, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.
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