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Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech
Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries (0434)Kira A. Dietz, Archivist
Copyright for individual items may vary. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives for more information on copying or publishing items from Cocktail Ephemera Collection.
Collection is open for research.
Selected items from this collection have been digitized and are available online . Additional items will be added to the digital collection as they are scanned.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Cocktail Ephemera Collection, Ms2013-027, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Initial materials in the Cocktail Ephemera Collection consisted of five individual purchases, made between 2012 and 2013. Additional materials are expected in the future.
The processing, arrangement, and description of the Cocktail Ephemera Collection was completed in July 2013. Further description is expected when new materials are added to the collection.
The Cocktail Ephemera Collection is a collection that was created in 2013. The collection consists of materials in a variety of formats relating to the history of the cocktails, dating from the about the 1870s to the present. Materials include advertising and promotional items; pamphlets with recipes and suggestions for entertaining (party games, themes, and more); and postcards. The focus of the collection is cocktails, but some materials also relate to wine and beer in their own right, as well as ingredients in mixed drinks.
At its creation, the collection was established with three series: Series I: Advertising/Promotional Materials; Series II: Pamphlets; and Series III: Postcards/Cards. The Advertising/Promotional Materials and Pamphlet series are organized into three subseries each: Beer, Cocktails/Punch, and Wine. The Postcards/Cards series is arranged in alphabetical subseries based on cover images: Bars and Restaurants; Beers, Wines, and Liquor; Holidays; People and Scenery; Quotes and Text; and Recipes.
Additional series have been added to the collection over time (as well as additional items added to existing series). Series IV: Labels contains unused labels from bottles, mostly wines, but also some harder spirits and government organizations. Series V: Artifacts includes a small collection of 3-D items that were advertisements or feature cocktails recipes or advertisements on them. Examples of this include a vintage Bakelike faux shaker with recipes on an embedded rolodex and a tape measure with inches on one side and recipes on the other. Series VI: Menus/Drink Lists/Recipes contains menus or suggested drink lists from cafes, bars, restaurants, and hotels. Series V: Receipts includes documents that reflect transactions relating to cocktail, ingredients, and equipment/supplies.
Additional series, subseries, and items are expected as the collection expands.
Virginia Tech Special Collections also includes a number of similar and related collections of ephemera and culinary publications:
Tolu Rock and Rye appears to have a short history of distribution between 1880 and 1881 (possibly a little later) as a patent medicine.
Classification of the drink as a medicine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made it easy for suppliers to avoid unwanted attention from the temperance movement and to avoid the taxes placed on alcohol at the time. As a medicine, rock and rye might be drunk straight, or mixed with hot tea. Recipes ranged from a basic mix of whisky and rock candy to more complex blends with citrus and herbs. Tolu Rock and Rye likely also contained tolu itself, a fragrant tree resin. Following Prohibition, Rock & Rye continued to appear as a cocktail in bars and saloons.
This item suggests Tolu Rock and Rye was distributed by Donaldson Brothers, New York (likely among others). Contemporary newspapers and advertisements indicate this particular brand of "Tolu Rock and Rye" was a secondary company of Lawrence and Martin Company of Chicago. Rock and rye concoctions containing tolu were produced by several companies.
This broadside from 1863 depicts the evils of drinking alcohol through an extended allegory of the "Black Valley Railroad" and its many stops. It appears to have been reproduced by different groups from the original print by the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance (as per SI: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_557196). This version is hand-colored, contains additional text about the "stops" and costs of alcohol consumption, and was issued by the National Temperance Society in New York.
Folder includes bartender guides, cocktail and punch recipes, pamphlets with party games and themes, and a "history" of the cocktail.
Includes a handwritten "Old Fashioneds" recipes on the inside cover.
Folder includes a guide for vintage Italian wine, as well as recipes for cooking with wine.
This item consists of a spool with cocktail recipes inside of a metal casing. The casing includes a list of recipes, the directions for which can be seen through a window at the. A wheel allows one to cycle through the recipes.
This wall-hanging advertisement for the Fleischmann Distilling Corporation is covered in useful kitchen reference tools: basic metric units, U.S./Metric equivalents, cooking measurements, clothing and show sizes converstions, a rules with inches and centimeters, temperature conversion, and "recommended metric sizes for distilled spirits." It is not dated, but is likely from the mid-20th century.
This item is a steel cocktail serving tray with with recipes for 22 cocktails created by French ocean liner barmen. It likely dates from 1931 and measures 12x17 inches.
Eight cocktail napkins with printed illustrations, in the manner of Jazz Age cartoonist, John Held, Jr. Printed in red, blue, yellow, green, and pink, comic scenes are drawn in a mock-archaic style: carousers sing and drink; a man rides a velocipede, a cop drinks a beer, a drunk man leans on a wooden cigar statue.
This item consists of a metal and plastic casing with cocktail recipes on cards inside. Using the selector to pick a card number, the release bar pops open the lid to reveal the recipes on the card. The selector also includes an index tab/card and the original pencil included so the owner could make notes on recipes.
Produced by the House of Gadgets, Inc., probably c. 1934, this post-Prohibition game includes an oilcloth "board" and a Bakelite and metal spinner. Panels on the board were labeled with different cocktails on which players could place bets. The spinner would produce a square number and odds for paying out the bet.
A previous version of the game was issued as early as the 1920s by the Imperial Brass Manufacutring Co. House of Gadgets, Inc. made the spinners for the 1920s version, as well as for this later one. In 1934, "On Me" was trademarked as the new name, which suggests the date for this particular item.
This item consists of a tabletop miniature bar, decorated with small bottle-topped cocktail picks and a tiny book of recipes.
Four handwritten recipes for liquor, most likely used during Prohibition. Recipes for:
SWEDISH RAISIN JACK: Brown Sugar, Rye or Cornmeal, Seedless Raisins, Yeast, etc. The recipe says it was copied from the Swedish Monthly Paper - TEKNISK TIDSKIRIFT, Feb. 1923. REAL OLD GORDON GIN, with a recipe for a Gin Ricky at the end. Two recipes are written on Hotel stationary from the MANSION HOUSE, Reading PA. The first of these recipes is for a peach liquor, the other is for FRED'S MASH MIXTURE, using Rye and Corn.