Cooking Lesson #733: Admiral Schley High Ball Cocktail

Happy Hour... Celebrating Black History Month

How you doin’? February is Black History Month and today I want to celebrate Tom Bullock, the first African American author of a cocktail book. Here was a mixologist that captured the mysteries and marvels of an art that borders on magic.
 
In 1913, the former president Theodore Roosevelt was in court trying to save his reputation. It was then that T.R. was accused of being an alcoholic, despite his continual, fervid insistence that he’d never been drunk in his life. Fed up with this libel, he vowed to sue the next publication that claimed it, ultimately taking out his anger on a tiny Michigan newspaper called the Ishpeming Iron Ore. As a witness under cross examination, Roosevelt did acknowledge a fondness for Mint Juleps, and further admitted that he had tasted a Julep once at the St. Louis Country Club, but only drank “a part” of it.
 
As far as the St. Louis Post Dispatch was concerned, this “just a part” business was proof he was lying. It was literally unbelievable. Why? Because the cocktail in question had been prepared by none other than Tom Bullock. “Who was ever known to drink a part of one of Tom’s Juleps?” editorialized the paper on March 28, 1913, “To believe that a red-blooded man and a true Colonel at that, ever stopped with just a part of these refreshments… is to strain credulity too far,” adding of Bullock that “there is no greater mixologist of any race, color, or condition of servitude.”
 
This is most of what we know of Tom Bullock—that he was revered as a bartender for over 25 years serving the best establishments in Louisville and St. Louis. Bullock was the first African American to publish a cocktail book, called The Ideal Bartender, in 1917. His volume is sadly short on personal details. This isn’t much and the mind thirsts for more. Some diligent researchers have been able to unearth the shape of his life, and that of black bartenders more generally from Reconstruction to WWI—particularly Michael Jones the former, and David Wondrich the latter—but this column is about cocktails, and Bullock’s talent, told through his cocktails, was enormous.
 
As noted, he was a wizard with the Mint Julep. He had the good idea of mixing absinthe and Benedictine, the first author I’ve seen do that. He was perhaps the first to publish a Martini-like cocktail with an onion, which would become the Gibson. He also has a flurry of original cocktails, any one of which I’d be proud to serve to you today, but a favorite is the Admiral Schley High Ball, made of Irish Whiskey, lemon juice, pineapple syrup, dessert wine and soda.
 
Schley was a Navy Admiral and a hero of the Spanish-American War. The Admiral Schley’s High Ball is a lovely and disarming drink, the bright fruit of the pineapple teasing out the honeyed brightness of the dessert wine, with the mild oak from the Irish Whiskey providing structure, a kind of a gentle but present backbone. It plays to Irish Whiskey’s core strength, which is that it’s such a soft and approachable spirit that subtle fruit—that which would be bludgeoned by bourbon or even scotch—is allowed to express itself and entice you with its subtleties.
 
It’s an inventive and delicious original from an excellent bartender, the flavors obvious in the way that great ideas always seem obvious in hindsight. We don’t recommend using it as any kind of valid legal defense, but it’s certainly worth your time on its own, or to make as a kind of toast to the noble past, and the mysteries and marvels of an art that borders on magic.
 
Thanks to The Robb Report for today’s history lesson.
 
Ingredients 
2 ounces Irish whiskey (I prefer Tullamore D.E.W.)
1/2 ounce Sauternes
3/4 ounce pineapple syrup
3/4 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon juice
 
Directions

1. Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake on ice for 10 seconds with great flair.
2. Strain the shaken mixture into a tall glass over fresh ice.
3. Top with soda (optional) and garnish with a pineapple wedge or lemon peel.

 
ChefSecrets:  This drink really shines where the whiskey provides soft supple fruit and a faint malty sweetness but mostly gets out of the way, functioning as the structural framework on which the other ingredients rest.
 
For a quick and easy pineapple syrup, you can mix equal parts pineapple juice (Dole cans are fine) and sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves.
 
Bullock calls for a dessert wine which could be found all over the place in 1917. That said, I’ve had the best luck with Sauternes. Just understand your proportions of pineapple syrup (for sweetness) and Irish Whiskey (for strength) which might need to be adjusted, depending on which bottles you grab.
 
I like to top it off with soda because it gives the drink bubbles and puts some separation between the flavors.
​ 
Quip of the Day:  A neutron walks into a bar. “How much for a beer?” the neutron asks. “For you?” says the bartender. “No charge.” 
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