Miscellaneous: Words of Cocktail Wisdom

... we are still of the opinion that decent libation supports as many million souls as it threatens; donates pleasure and sparkle to more lives than it shadows; inspires more brilliance in the world of art, music, letters and common ordinary intelligent conversation than it dims ... We view the subject with clinical interest, continued joy and extreme toleration. We feel that so long as it is an existing part of human life, too strong and too important for prohibition, we should make the enjoyments as apparent and as controlled as possible; the tastes crisp, the compounding as intriguing as far ports of the world can afford.

Charles H. Baker, Jr., The Gentleman’s Companion, Vol. II (1939)