The Sam Ward Cocktail

A Sublimely Weird Creation Named for the Gilded Age's Lobbyist King.

While attending the opening night of the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory last week, my first stop, as always, was the stall for lizzyyoungbooksellers. Lizzy Young always has a good selection of old cocktail and bar books and I usually find something I want/need. This year was no exception. I walked away with a first edition of The How and When, a volume from 1937.

The How and When is an unusual cocktail book in that it was not published by a bartender or a distiller, but two executives from a liquor store in Chicago. Marco Liquor Store was founded in 1888 by Abe Marco, who was also president of Illinois Package Liquor Stores association, and the publication of the book marked the outfit’s 50th anniversary. Marco had two locations, at 157 N. Wabash Avenue and 46 S. Clark Street. (What Marco Liquor Store did for money during Prohibition is unclear.)

The 200-page book, which had several editions over the years, was put together by Gerald F. Marco, Abe’s son, and Hyman Gale, then vice-president of the company. The enterprising young Marco was only 27 years old when he published the book. (Gale died in 1968; Marco in 2007.) The book is very serious-minded, with sections explaining various spirits; how to care for and serve wine; how to use wine when cooking food; even recipes for canapés to serve with cocktails. The introduction states the authors’ intention to create an “authoritative reference guide.”

That Marco would publish such a book is not surprising. The company was obsessed with its reputation. Ads called it “An Institution of Character.” Another frequent slogan was, “Since 1888 we have unconditionally guaranteed every purchase.” Oh, Marco considered itself a quite the upstanding liquor store!

The cocktail section, meanwhile, is surprisingly massive. There are more than 1,000 recipes, along with sections devoted to highballs, punches, hot drinks and fizzes. I doubt there’s any important cocktail of that era, or any previous era, that was left out. That said, as I paged through the book, I recognized almost every drink until I hit the “S”’s and came upon the Sam Ward Cocktail.