A blog dedicated to the culture of hospitality, as told through the lens of women’s history. Exploring hosting etiquette through the ages, forgotten books and their authors, and the odd bit of cocktail inspiration. From the desk of sociologist, writer, and entrepreneur
DR NICOLA NICE
The Tiffin Tea Cup with Thon Mariné
It's 4pm on a Saturday in early 1893. You’re invited to a tea reception in the White City where 500 of Chicago’s finest will be stepping out in all of their afternoon finery. If you’re lucky you might be treated to society’s trendiest new beverage - the Tiffin Tea Cup – and taste its new favorite sandwich, the Thon Mariné. All courtesy of Mrs Alexander Orr Bradley, aka the one who knows.
IYKYK: Mixing It and Making It in the Gilded Age
Beverages and Sandwiches For Your Husband’s Friends by One Who Knows, by Mrs Alexander Orr Bradley, was one of the first drinks guides to be written by a woman during the height of the Gilded Age. But who was Mrs Bradley, and what did she know? Hers is a story of mixing it and making it as she set out to entertain her way into the upper levels of Chicago society.
THE COCKTAIL PARLOR
How women brought the cocktail home
Meet the hostesses who have shaped cocktail history, and learn how to make the drinks they loved.
Throughout American history, women have helped propel what we know as classic cocktails—the Martini, the Manhattan, the Old-Fashioned, and more—into popular culture. But, often excluded from private clubs, women exercised this influence from the home, in their cocktail parlors. In The Cocktail Parlor, Dr. Nicola Nice, sociologist and spirits entrepreneur, gives women their long-overdue spotlight in cocktail history and shows how they still impact cocktail culture today.