Paper Magazine has a great interview with Jim today, too--here's an excerpt:
It seems like you wrote your cocktail book with an eye on history.
I started collecting cocktail books right after I started working at Pegu Club. Audrey [Saunders] had a bunch of books at the bar and at that time I'd also met a vintage cookbook collector named Bonnie Slotnick. I realized the history of bartending was in these old books and it was almost like proof that what I chose to do with my life was a really good decision. I tried to infuse the book with what I thought was great about these old books, make it nostalgic without being derivative. Now I'll go into a bar and see a bartender with a 19th century mustache, vintage sailor tattoos, like he's straight out of a Civil War reenactment. My goal was not to be a Civil War reenactor, but show how we're doing things now with a sense of history.
It seems like you wrote your cocktail book with an eye on history.
I started collecting cocktail books right after I started working at Pegu Club. Audrey [Saunders] had a bunch of books at the bar and at that time I'd also met a vintage cookbook collector named Bonnie Slotnick. I realized the history of bartending was in these old books and it was almost like proof that what I chose to do with my life was a really good decision. I tried to infuse the book with what I thought was great about these old books, make it nostalgic without being derivative. Now I'll go into a bar and see a bartender with a 19th century mustache, vintage sailor tattoos, like he's straight out of a Civil War reenactment. My goal was not to be a Civil War reenactor, but show how we're doing things now with a sense of history.
