[imagesource: Universal History Archive]

We’re about to take a step into 19th century London to hear about the kind of drinking habits that would take place at the time.

But first, let’s start off with a question: How many Whiskey Cocktails can you drink in a row?

To fully understand the challenge that this question evokes, the cocktail contains around two shots of bourbon or rye, a teaspoon of thick sugar syrup, and a couple of dashes of bitters in a small glass of ice.

As dainty and simple as they may seem, these cocktails really add up.

One could probably muster up enough coherence to manage at most five, right?

As long as, just like the brave soul over at The Daily Beast admits, you don’t mind “appearing like a sozzled old fool” and can use the next day to nurture your hangover.

But still, that is not nearly enough to beat the winner of what the publication is calling “the greatest drinking contest in history”:

To the best of my knowledge, you see, the standing record for drinking cocktails is held by Randall Percy Otway Plunkett, the 13th Baron Louth (1832-1883), who set it at a cocktail drinking contest way back in 1867.

Apparently, he was able to put away 36 Whiskey Cocktails, as detailed above, a number that is—fortunately—unlikely to be bettered.

I would like to advise that no one dare challenge this winner or the other formidable drinker that he went head-to-head with back in 1867.

Perhaps because of all the sozzled accounts, it has been rather difficult to piece this part of history together. But finally, there is a tall tale, and it is certainly not for the faint of heart.

It all started when 34-year-old Lord Louth, who was retired from the British Army’s 24th Regiment of Foot, met someone who took him to New York.

There he happened upon the New York Hotel (on Broadway at Waverly Place), “a sporting-life hangout largely patronised by Southerners, army officers, and Southern army officers, which is to say ex-Confederates”:

There he got to talking with Albert Haller Tracy, Jr., of Buffalo, New York, a 32-year-old lawyer and graduate of Andover and Yale with a reputation as a “versatile, vivacious and humorous” conversationalist.

Lord Louth told Tracy he was keen to see Niagara Falls and was offered a quick tour of the city prior to the duo heading to the Falls.

But things went south after they met at a bar to cement their plans:

All was well until Louth ordered them up a pair of lemonades made the way he liked to drink them.

They were, in the words of José “Panama Joe” Fernandez, the hotel’s Spanish-born head bartender, “mixed in the largest glasses in the house, holding about a pint and a half, and consisted of one-third lemonade and two-thirds of rum.”

After two of these Zombie-makers, each of which must have held a good ten or 12 ounces [eight shots] of rum, Tracy “weakened” when it came to a third.

Their drunken chat and egotism led to Tracy claiming he could “drink as many Whiskey Cocktails as any man living,” which Louth was keen to challenge.

Thus was born the cocktail drinking competition, potentially as dangerous to its contestants as any duel with guns or knives.

They met at 3PM the next day, with word having spread around town and the bar packed.

The men, both of them corpulent and expensively-dressed, took their places at one end of the bar. The start was signaled.

“I mixed the first cocktails and set them before the two giants,” Fernandez recalled in 1883. “Down they went like a flash and the empty glasses were turned upside down on the bar.”

The Whiskey Cocktails were mixed and drained, round after round:

Twenty-five rounds were dead and gone, and then thirty, and still the competitors kept methodically emptying the glasses as fast as Panama Joe could fill them.

Finally, after his 35th Panama Joe Fernandez Whiskey Cocktail, Albert Haller Tracy, Jr. cried “hold, enough!” All that remained was for Fernandez to mix Lord Louth a 36th cocktail and for Lord Louth to drink it.

That he did, and Lord Louth was declared the victor.

An eyewitness said that money changed hands before both contestants “stood up, walked steadily out of the bar, and parted”.

The Niagara Falls trip never happened, obviously.

There are additions to the story that make it even wilder, like the fact that Louth was carried on the shoulders of a crowd of Irish Americans the next day, as well as exaggerations about their weight (ranging from 113 kilograms to 136 kgs).

Either way, 36 Whiskey Cocktails, the equivalent of a bit more than two full bottles of Whiskey, should have been deadly.

Then again, these men were accustomed to drinking heavily.

Haller Tracy would often start his day with several bottles of chilled Champagne and finish it with a bottle of old Cognac, apparently.

Let this be a lesson to “never, ever do anything so goddamned stupid as try to establish that [you] can drink more cocktails than someone else”.

[source:dailybeast]