Tom Bullock

Tom Bullock (1872–1964) was a Black American bartender in the pre-Prohibition era.

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, and most notably the St. Louis Country Club, and is the first known African-American author to publish a cocktail manual, The Ideal Bartender.[2][3] 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.

Bullock was known to be a bartender and friend to George Herbert Walker, who wrote an introduction to his cocktail manual. 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.[4]

Bullock died in 1964.[5]

Cocktail historian David Wondrich believes that Bullock may have been one of the first bartenders to create a variant of the gimlet.[2]

References
  1. "With a twist: Louisville's famous bartender Thomas Bullock". LEO Weekly. 2017-01-18. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
  2. Simonson, Robert (2015-02-17). "Tom Bullock's 'The Ideal Bartender' Offers Words of Advice". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
  3. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ideal Bartender, by Tom Bullock". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
  4. Brown, Derek, 1974-. Spirits sugar water bitters : how the cocktail conquered the world. Yule, Robert,. New York. ISBN 978-0-8478-6146-0. OCLC 1044555122.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. "Tom Bullock (1872 - 1964)". Cocktail Times. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
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