| The Twentieth Century ushered in a new and
increasingly modern world that would touch ever aspect of life. For bars, the biggest change was the advent of electric power.
Electricity benefited bars in three separate ways. Electric light made bars more inviting and easier to clean. The electric refrigerator allowed bars to make their own ice, and an electric compressor meant their patrons got carbonic (seltzer) water on demand. The newly installed telephone would also give rise to such utterances as "if that's for me, I'm not here." |  |
| The depicted bar with its brass rail, linen bar napkins, and cuspidors appears virtually inditinquishable from any of a number of 19th century bars, but for the Edison-Mazda electric light bulbs visible in a line along the ceiling. | |
 | As the Nineteenth Century waned, cocktails achieved respectability. Glasses were now made especially for them and newly-invented "combination shakers" which would simplify mixing and, along with the hord of new recipe books, bring cocktail mixing popularity into the home. But what potions were people shaking and drinking?
Shaken or stirred, there were now well over 100 published cocktails. Among them, as shown below, the brand new Dry Martini for 1906. |
| Exhibit material collected and composed by: Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh Copyright © 2006 The Museum of the American Cocktail All Rights Reserved |