Table Talk:
Boundary-breaking women in booze
Apr. 16 — Happy Tuesday! Welcome to the table!
Here’s a fun fact: Kansas City, MO, now includes a museum dedicated to smoked meats. The Museum of BBQ opened last week with installations highlighting regional barbecue styles from around the country.
🍖 “It’s a series of ten installations that are intentionally interactive, so you get to smell the components of spice and you get to touch the wood that fuels smokers,” founder Jonathan Bender told The Kansas City Star. “Our goal really is for you to understand how flavor is built in barbecue and then tour you through the main American regions, so you learn about the different spice profiles of Memphis and Texas and the Carolinas and of course, Kansas City.”
And if you’re headed to New Orleans, I highly recommend visiting the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, which also features The Museum of the American Cocktail as part of its exhibits.
🍹 Speaking of cocktails, in today’s edition of “Family Meal,” I’m bringing you a sneak peek into my upcoming feature story publishing later this week into the complicated history of women working in the alcohol trade. This includes bartenders, brewers, cookbook and cocktail book authors, and the women who stormed the Sazerac Bar in 1949.
For “The Move,” I tell you where to find a righteous take on pesto pomodoro near Ponce City Market. And if you’re looking for another dish to add to your Easter feast this weekend, Marcus Bar & Grille chef Gary Caldwell shares his recipe for lamb ragu.
Cheers!
🍸 Beth
🏃 Join Move For Grady on April 26! With three cycling distances and two run/walk options, there’s something for everyone. Then celebrate your accomplishment – and support for Grady – with a fun finish line celebration at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Boundary-Breaking Women in Booze
🚫 Did you know that in 1970 more than 30 states included laws prohibiting women from bartending?
Michigan, for example, prohibited women from being licensed bartenders in cities with 50,000 or more residents unless the businesses were owned by their fathers or husbands.
Bartender Valentine Goesaert challenged the Michigan law in 1948, stating that it violated her rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. While the case (Goesaert versus Cleary) landed in front of the Supreme Court, it was ultimately upheld.
⚖️ The decision was finally overturned in 1976.
Up until the mid-1970s, everything from wildly outdated social constructs like the chivalric codes of the Middle Ages, puritanical viewpoints on gender roles, and indecency laws were cited as reasons to keep women from bartending or even entering taverns, saloons, and other morally compromising establishments unless accompanied by a man.
At the turn of the 20th century, women in Atlanta could be prosecuted for drinking in bars unchaperoned and were often surveilled by the police.
♀️ Bars that did allow women to enter without a man featured ladies’ entrances leading to a back room away from the main bar. Ladies’ entrances existed at bars across America well into the 1970s.
More “progressive” bars of the day included snugs or tight corner spaces with a tiny table and a couple of chairs walled off on three sides to keep imbibing women safe from prying eyes.
For nearly 100 years, women weren’t permitted to drink at the famous Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans – accompanied or not – except on Mardi Gras. That changed on September 26, 1949, when a group of local women pushed into the men-only hotel bar demanding equal treatment and to be served drinks.
🥃The hotel eventually caved to their demands, and the event became known as the “storming of the Sazerac.” It’s now celebrated annually at the Sazerac Bar as a victory and a milestone toward women’s social equality.
The term “bartender” was almost exclusively reserved for men. Instead, women in the same role were referred to as “barmaids,” considered a suitable title for women in a profession that many people felt walked a murky line between morality and making an honest living.
Ada Coleman, the most famous female bartender of all time – and the inventor of the classic cocktail the Hanky Panky – stood out amongst her male colleagues for more than just her gender. Coleman was the head bartender of the famed American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London from 1903 to 1925, leading a team of men and one other woman bartender, Ruth Burgess.
Breaking with tradition, which saw women bartenders often working behind the scenes at the service bar, Coleman and Burgess mixed their cocktails standing front and center at the main bar within full view of hotel guests.
💁♀️ Despite her high-ranking position at the American Bar, however, Coleman couldn’t always escape being called a barmaid. And while she likely invented other drinks beyond the Hanky Panky, it’s the only cocktail fellow American Bar bartender Harry Craddock credits to Coleman in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” published in 1930.
Craddock took over as head bartender at the American Bar when Coleman left. Today, the Hanky Panky is as famous as the American Bar itself.
Boundary breakers like Coleman and Burgess and the women of the Sazerac Bar were hardly the first of their kind.
Stone tablets dating to 4,000 BC depict women making beer in Mesopotamia. Similar archeological evidence suggests women living in ancient Egypt were doing the same.
During the Middle Ages in the Netherlands, most of society believed women were superior brewers to men. In the mid-15th century, women made up 30 percent of the brewers in London.
🍒🍷Martha Washington was famous for making cordials at Mount Vernon, like Cherry Bounce, a brandy-based drink made from fresh tart cherries popular in the 18th century. In 1904, Mary Virginia Terhune published the first cocktail book attributed to a woman.
For centuries, women have been tavern owners, brewers, and distillers, making beer, cider, wine, and spirits to drink for pleasure and as medicinal remedies. Women were also moonshiners and bootleggers and instrumental in the repeal of the 18th Amendment and Prohibition.
Yet the perceived fragility of women’s bodies and minds and the belief that they were easily corrupted by temptation persisted well into the late 20th century.
➡️ Read the rest of my partnership story with WABE/”City Lights” when it publishes on Rough Draft this Thursday, which includes a few boundary-breaking women bartenders, sommeliers, and cicerones in Atlanta. You can also listen to the full “Beverage Beat with Beth McKibben” segment during “City Lights” at 1 p.m. on April 21.
Don’t miss Buckhead’s dining event of the year!
SPONSORED BY TASTE OF ATLANTA
🍾 Discover the best of Buckhead dining at Grand Tasting Buckhead on April 24! This all-inclusive event includes unlimited tastings of food, wine, beer & craft cocktails from over 20 local restaurants, plus chef chats, mixology demos and live music! Find your next favorite cocktail or destination date night spot, all while supporting Atlanta’s thriving restaurant scene.
➞ Don’t miss out on this unforgettable evening of flavors, fun, and fabulous food — get your tickets here!
The Move: Pesto e Pomodoro at A Mano
🥰 When my young adult children are home visiting Atlanta, the trip agenda typically includes a family dinner at A Mano in the Old Fourth Ward.
With a menu and vibe leaning more osteria than trattoria, A Mano features handmade pastas, a seriously underrated wine list, and cocktails ranging from straightforward classics to wildly original concoctions, like the Banana Daq 3000 with Haitian rum, banana syrup, Montenegro, chardonnay cordial, lime, and toasted sesame.
😋 And while you can’t go wrong with reliable standbys like bucatini alla bolognese or carbonara at A Mano, try the pesto e pomodoro ($19). Rigatoni comes tossed in a zesty sun-dried tomato pesto mixed with sauteed rapini leaves and stems, fennel fronds, and crumbles of feta cheese. It’s an especially good choice if you plan to order a heavier entree to follow, like eggplant parmesan or grilled ribeye.
End your meal with an affogato or an amaro with a slice of citrus olive oil cake and a scoop of EVOO gelato ($14).
Marcus Bar & Grille
Chef Gary Caldwell’s Lamb Ragu
🍝 Want to add one more dish to your Easter Sunday spread this weekend? Marcus Bar & Grille chef Gary Caldwell provided Rough Draft readers with his recipe for lamb ragu––a comforting dish he described as like “coming home and eating mom’s spaghetti and meat sauce.”
Based on his grandmother’s recipe, Caldwell’s recipe calls for ground lamb instead of beef and is garnished with freshly shaved parmesan cheese.
“Growing up, we used American cheese, which made it extra gooey,” Caldwell recalled of his grandmother’s beef ragu. “Sometimes she would throw in hot dogs to stretch it out to have enough to feed the family, and my aunt would make Indian fry bread. Other times, we would have po’boy bread and make a hot pocket.”
🤗 Caldwell added the lamb ragu to the menu at Marcus Bar & Grille to offer diners a hearty yet homey dish that might remind them of childhood.
“A lot of the dishes I do at the restaurant are to make people reminisce about the simpler times,” Caldwell explained.
He recommended pairing the lamb ragu with a nice bold red or a sparkling shiraz, boasting tasting notes of red fruits, fresh herbs, black pepper, and a hint of vanilla. The sparkling shiraz, in particular, will help cut the richness of the lamb.
⬇️ Check out Chef Gary Caldwell’s recipe for lamb ragu below:
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 5 lbs ground lamb
- 1 onion (blended)
- 1 celery stalk (blended)
- 1 carrot (blended)
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 Tbsp fennel seed
- 5 cups tomato (puree)
- 3 Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 Tbsp ground black pepper
Directions
Serve ragu atop pasta of choice. Caldwell recommends pappardelle.
Preheat oil.
Add ground lamb and brown evenly.
Once browned, add fennel seed and blended vegetables and sauté for five minutes, then add tomato paste.
Once the mixture begins to get sticky, add red wine and reduce the heat by half.
Add tomato puree and salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.
🏃 Join Move For Grady on April 26! With three cycling distances and two run/walk options, there’s something for everyone. Then celebrate your accomplishment – and support for Grady – with a fun finish line celebration at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium. SPONSOR MESSAGE
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