Bizzy Izzy Highball

In terms of cocktail tomes, it doesn’t get much more important than The Ideal Bartender. Tom Bullock’s 1917 compendium, a once hard-to-find jewel of the craft cocktail scene, is widely available again, bringing with it a snapshot of American culture as it barreled toward Prohibition. The first cocktail book by an African American bartender, it brings us dozens of classics in venerable form (along with a forward by Bullock advocate and namesake of two future American presidents, George Herbert Walker) as well as insight into the swath of cool Bullock cut between Louisville and St. Louis during his impressive career.

Bullock’s book isn’t just a portrait of the past, but a portal to the cocktail revival that arrived in the early 2000s. Perhaps none of its drinks feel as modern as the criminally overlooked Bizzy Izzy Highball. This combination of rye whiskey, pineapple, and sherry sits right at home with the way we drink now, but it’s rarely served at bars these days. It's possible the Bizzy Izzy remains obscure in part because of some confusion about how it was prepared. What we do know is that all of the best drinks are open to interpretation, and the Bizzy Izzy deserves to be canonized, argued about, and presented to the best of our abilities—a fitting homage to a bartending legend.