How to celebrate World Cocktail Day this Thursday
This Thursday is World Cocktail Day, and what better way to celebrate than splashing out on some new glass- and silverware with which to shake and sip your mix of sugary booze?
For collectors that means more than a cursory scroll through the Amazon listings: must-have items include Art Deco Parisian ‘Boston’ cocktail shakers and a set of late Victorian Collins glasses.
A cheaper way, however, is to try and get hold of a calabash. The first cocktail shaker, you see, was probably a South American gourd not dissimilar to a calabash. The ancient Egyptians, who always seemed to be on the lash, mixed up spices with fermented grain concoctions in hollowed out fruits, but gourds are easier to come by than pre-dynastic drinking vessels made out of Nile silt clay.