Cocktail history as a comic: Author talks about his new graphic nonfiction book
New York-based cocktail historian David Wondrich had most recently finished editing an 860-plus-page compendium of knowledge about cocktail history when the opportunity arose to share cocktail history through a different medium: as a graphic nonfiction book.
The author took on the challenge, teaming up with illustrator Dean Kotz to take readers on a journey around the world, following the world’s drinking preferences from Colonial-era punches to Prohibition, from the rise of the 1930s tiki trend to the modern-day craft cocktail movement and beyond — plus much more along the way, including an array of cocktail recipes. We recently caught up with Wondrich to learn more.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What inspired you to tell the history of cocktails through a comic book?
A: I had thought about doing a cocktail-themed comic book for quite a long time. I was talking to Ten Speed Press a couple years back, and they mentioned their comic book history series and asked if I would be interested in doing that. I said yes.
Q: You cover so much history in the book. How did you go about curating that history and figuring out which stories to include?
A: I was very familiar with the history because I’ve been writing cocktail history for 25 years. For my last book before this one, I was the editor-in-chief and principal writer of the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, a huge reference book that includes histories and biographies of famous bartenders, as well as other related information. So a lot of the information was pretty fresh in my mind. That said, I always research my books anew, and see what else I can find; what other connections I can make. There were some periods in some places that were completely new to me, and that was fun. I tried to tell as many stories as I possibly could. I’ve written at length, for instance, about the history of African American bartenders, which was really deeply buried. I also did a lot of research on Asian and Pacific Islander bartenders in America.
Q: What was it like translating that history into comic book form? How did that process work with the illustrator?
A: It was really hard. I did this not because it was easy, but because I thought it would be easy. But it turned out to be really difficult. My editor insisted that this should be a real history with documentation, so I couldn’t skip over bits or dramatize stuff too much. I had to make sure that it gave you a good, solid, accurate history, while at the same time trying to make it as lively as possible.
Q: And you included a number of recipes — what were some of your favorites?
A: Well, I included a lot of bedrock classics that were emblematic of the age that I was talking about. But I threw in some curveballs, and at the end, included some cocktails that I invented, like the Leaving of Liverpool, which somebody asked me to come up with during the COVID lockdown, when everybody was singing, or watching videos of people singing, sea chanteys. That actually turned out to be quite delicious.
Q: The Bay Area gets a few shoutouts in the book, too. Tell me more about the Bay Area’s significance in cocktail history.
A: In America, which is the homeland of the cocktail, and almost always its driving force, there are really three major cocktail cities — not to take away from the others — where great drinks have been invented, and where there were always great bars. There were three real style leaders: New York, New Orleans and San Francisco. A great many drinks came out of San Francisco and Oakland. When I first visited San Francisco in the 1980s, I was used to the neighborhood bars in New York, which were all Irish bars. In San Francisco, I think it’s telling that the local neighborhood bars, the old ones, were all tiny little cocktail lounges. So it’s been cocktail country from the very beginning.
Q: Tell me more about Irish coffee and its San Francisco connection. National Irish Coffee Day is Sunday, Jan. 25.
A: This guy, Stan Delaplane, was a top travel newspaper columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1950, he went on a press junket to Ireland and was served Irish coffee and was like, “What magical elixir is this?” He brought back some Irish whiskey to the Buena Vista Cafe, and he and the owner sat down and tried to re-create it, and finally they managed to get it exactly right. The bar put it on the menu, in 1953, I believe, and it really took off in 1954. It became the biggest hit of the 1950s, and San Francisco was the catalyst.
Q: There was also Trader Vic’s, which opened in 1934 in Oakland.
A: Trader Vic (Bergeron) didn’t invent the standard tiki bar — Don the Beachcomber (a.k.a. Donn Beach) did that down in L.A., but Trader Vic was his earliest disciple, and a much better businessman than Donn Beach was. He was a very good businessman and a very good mixologist. He came up with the Mai Tai, which is a splendid drink, and things like that. He was the great popularizer, while Donn Beach was more of the philosopher behind the whole thing. But you need both.
Q: Did the martini originate in Martinez?
A: That, unfortunately, doesn’t hold water. It’s a nice idea, but the timing doesn’t work out. And there’s no evidence for it whatsoever.
Q: What are you hoping people take away from the book?
A: I’m hoping they get a sense of the people involved. These drinks are things that were made by people, for people. I’m hoping they can see themselves in the book and find what really resonates with them in the tradition of mixing drinks. My main hope is that people find it interesting, that it gives them stuff to talk about, and that they can understand where their favorite drinks came from.
Details: “The Comic Book History of the Cocktail: Five Centuries of Mixing Drinks and Carrying On,” by David Wondrich, illustrated by Dean Kotz (Ten Speed Graphic, $30) is available where books are sold, including at penguinrandomhouse.com.