By Laura D.C. Kolnoski
COLTS NECK – “Cheers to the hostess whose welcome is most cordial and whose cordial is most welcome.”
So begins a new book chronicling the history of women in the evolution of cocktails and cocktail culture, “The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home” by Nicola Nice, Ph.D. (2024 Countryman Press), the perfect gift for a holiday season filled with parties.
Beginning with the 1800s and concluding in the present day, the 216-page historical recipe book details more than 100 variations on classic cocktails, from Martha Washington’s Happy Hour Punch to the Harlem Renaissance-inspired Green Skirt. Chapters include libations popularized during each era, along with recipes for syrups and “flavor inspirations.”
On a recent Sunday, Nice discussed her book with invited guests at the circa 1700s headquarters of Laird & Company, America’s oldest distiller and holder of U.S. Distillery License No. 1, issued after the repeal of Prohibition. Family-owned and run for nine generations, the company’s vice president and world ambassador is Lisa Laird-Dunn, whose grown children have now joined the business.
Laird-Dunn and her son Gerard hosted the afternoon with assistance from Night Owl Hospitality of Asbury Park, serving recipes from “The Cocktail Parlor” made with Laird’s products.
Nice met Laird-Dunn, whom she calls a mentor, through the Women’s Cocktail Collective, an organization founded in 2015 to help female professionals in the liquor industry network and raise funds for philanthropic causes. A British native, Nice moved to the U.S. in 2007 when the cocktail revival was in full swing, settling in New York.
“Few women were running liquor companies then,” said Nice, founder and CEO of Pomp & Whimsy Gin. “Lisa is so humble, kind and generous. She’s the hostess with the mostest, as Pearl Mesta was called.” Mesta, profiled in Chapter 5, “The Grand Hostess,” was renowned for her cocktail parties in the 1920s through 1940s, populated by famous guests. She was America’s first ambassador to Luxembourg and the nation’s first female ambassador. The Black Russian was created in Mesta’s honor and she was immortalized in Irving Berlin’s 1950 musical “Call Me Madam.”
“As a commercial sociologist who studies cocktail trends by day and is a cocktail lover by night, I have always had a fascination with hospitality rituals and the social history of food and drink,” said Nice, who advises global firms like beverage titan Diageo. “ ‘The Cocktail Parlor’ gives women their long overdue spotlight in cocktail history.”
Embarking on “a mission,” Nice collected female-authored works dating back 200 years, from household management and etiquette guides to cooking and entertaining books. Her fascination gave way to frustration over the lack of information concerning women and cocktail culture, prompting her to contact author Robert Simonson, who had posted his picks for the most influential cocktail books on Instagram. After she pointed out none of his choices were written by women, he challenged her to write one of her own, drawing on the subjects she had discovered in her research.
Simonson, who attended the Laird’s event, wrote the forward for “The Cocktail Parlor,” noting, “The simple yet profound truth that Dr. Nice uncovered… is that homemakers had as much to do with the spread of cocktail culture as the saloon keepers did.”
“Cocktails became a thing in the late Victorian era,” she said, adding women helped popularize classics like the martini, the Manhattan, the old-fashioned, and more. Excluded from private clubs, women, “the Chief Entertainment Officers at home” turned to their own cocktail parlors. In the first comprehensive cocktail guide, published in 1862 by barman Jerry Thomas, many cordial liquors he used were preparations women had been making for generations to preserve produce, treat disease, promote health and flavor food.
“I wanted to tell the story of the cocktail and the interesting women who were part of it and led fascinating lives, including the fight for women’s rights,” Nice said. “Women had enormous social power in the Gilded Age, attending tea parties that hosted suffragette meetings. They couldn’t go into bars then, and only into restaurants during the day or for dinner with men.”
The book explores the evolution of formal cocktail parties from the 1950s and ’60s through the casual house parties of today. It also covers craft cocktails, bar cart basics, pantry staples, glass selections, and how to make a proper toast at any occasion. The late Julia Child, Barbara “B.” Smith and Martha Stewart make appearances. The book’s final chapter is dedicated to no-proof cocktails, with recipes reimagining classics using homemade cordials and teas.
Following Nice’s presentation, Laird-Dunn toured guests through her family’s historic home that today houses the firm’s offices, offering anecdotes and historical facts about her family and Laird’s part in American history. She was the last family member to live in the familiar white home with the yellow shutters at Laird Road and Route 537 with her parents and the first female family member to lead the company since her grandmother who took over after her grandfather died.
“This is my favorite place,” Laird-Dunn said as she opened the door to Bonded Warehouse No. 1. Inside, guests learned that the company produces most of all the Applejack and American Apple Brandy on the market, using three to four million apples during distillery season. Mixed varieties come from Virginia, with the final processing done at the Colts Neck facility.
The company’s first official record of sale is dated 1780, although the family began making their product 100 years prior at the site of what is now the Colts Neck Inn on Route 537. George Washington was a patron at the stagecoach stop. As lore tells it, after some persuasion, he became the only person outside the family to obtain the Applejack recipe. Robert Laird, the proprietor at the time, supplied Washington’s troops with the spirit.
“We put aside special casks for this event,” Laird-Dunn said as she took over bartending duties in the primary barrel aging warehouse at the tour’s conclusion. “This is where the magic happens.”
The article originally appeared in the December 5 – 11, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
