Tom Bullock Explained

Tom Bullock (1872–1964) was an American bartender in the pre-Prohibition era. He was an African-American person.

He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 18, 1872,[1] one of at least three children of Thomas Bullock, his father, a former slave who fought for the Union Army, according to US Census records.[1]

Bullock was a bartender at the Pendennis Club, the Kenton Club, on a railway car bar,[2] and most notably the St. Louis Country Club, and is the first known African-American author to publish a cocktail manual, The Ideal Bartender.[3] [4] His book is notable as one of the last cocktail manuals published before Prohibition, providing a rare view onto pre-Prohibition cocktail recipes and drinking culture in America. Some writers believe that he appears to have ceased bartending with the onset of Prohibition;[5] others believe that he continued to tend bar at the St. Louis Country Club or other private settings despite the legal prohibition.[6]

Bullock was known to be a bartender and friend to George Herbert Walker, who wrote an introduction to his cocktail manual, writing "It is a genuine privilege to be permitted to testify to his qualifications for such a work."[7] In 1913, he was involved in a libel case when ex-President Theodore Roosevelt sued for alleged libel regarding his drinking habits, and asserted he had only had a few sips of a mint julep cocktail made by Bullock. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch disputed Roosevelt's claim, asserting that no one could fail to finish one of Bullock's cocktails.[8]

Bullock died in 1964.[9]

Cocktail historian David Wondrich believes that Bullock may have been one of the first bartenders to create a variant of the gimlet,[3] the Stone Sour.[10]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2017-01-18. With a twist: Louisville's famous bartender Thomas Bullock. 2020-06-14. LEO Weekly.
  2. Web site: The Life and Legacy of Tom Bullock : GoToLouisville.com Official Travel Source . 2023-07-06 . www.gotolouisville.com.
  3. News: Simonson. Robert. 2015-02-17. Tom Bullock's 'The Ideal Bartender' Offers Words of Advice. The New York Times. 2020-06-14. 0362-4331.
  4. Web site: The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ideal Bartender, by Tom Bullock. 2020-06-14. www.gutenberg.org.
  5. News: Wondrich. David. 2020-03-07. The Lost African-American Bartenders who Created the Cocktail. en. The Daily Beast. 2021-12-28.
  6. Web site: The Life and Legacy of Tom Bullock : GoToLouisville.com Official Travel Source . 2023-07-06 . www.gotolouisville.com.
  7. Web site: A History of Black Bartenders. 2022-01-04. THE BITTER SOUTHERNER. en-US.
  8. Book: Brown, Derek. Spirits sugar water bitters : how the cocktail conquered the world. Yule, Robert.. 29 October 2018. 978-0-8478-6146-0. New York. 1044555122.
  9. News: Tom Bullock (1872 - 1964) . June 15, 2020 . Cocktail Times.
  10. News: Wondrich. David. 2020-03-07. The Lost African-American Bartenders who Created the Cocktail. en. The Daily Beast. 2021-12-28.