Mad Men Riviera Cocktail Set

GR’s midcentury cocktail set sits on a stand made in the 1960’s by The Riviera Company called the “Royal Crown” barware set. The idea of themed, Royalty for example, cocktail paraphernalia goes back to the name cocktail itself, to 1806, meaning a strong drink.

We now see a resurgence of the cocktail craze, perhaps because anything midcentury is hot. The era saw American middle class’s heyday of the shaker, dedicated martini and highball glass sets, and the “family” cocktail hour. Not to mention drinks at lunch, AND after work, AND before dinner…. Special retro sites like the History Company online offer historic drinking objects like Hemmingway’s Swordfish emblazed Rocks glass, and The Old Knickerbocker Club’s Top-Hat stemmed martini glasses.

Cocktail History

GR’s set harkens back to a social drink preparation ritual. A landmark museum show in 2017 celebrated this at the Dallas Museum of Art. Shaken, Stirred, Styled: The Art of the Cocktail showed the history of the accoutrements of drinking from the first 1881 Sterling Tiffany Punch Bowl to today. In the mid-18th century the very wealthy bought porcelain punch bowls, today a collectible called Chinese Export porcelain. They look gorgeous, and used for very strong ‘soups’ of liquors, served with a ladle.

The history of ritualized boozing goes WAY back to the 18th century when taverns became THE meeting place. When a gentleman wanted to make a political point, and hammer it home, he used a special booze glass called the “firing” glass. The heavy base made it safe to slam on a table.

Speaking of the 18th to 19th century punch bowl, not ALL people wanted the same drink, communal and ceremonious. 1862 saw the publication of the first cocktail recipe book, Jerry Thomas‘s How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion.

As the 19th century drew to a close, TWO important factors contributed to the popularity of mixed drinks:

• The transportation of ICE.
• The refinements of distillation meant a drinker did NOT have to hold his nose to drink without adding sugar, citrus, or spices to the unpalatable hooch.

Prohibition? No problem!

Did the 18th Amendment stop the drink object industry from growing along with the liquor industry? Prohibition, laid down in 1919, caused manufactures of fine drinking paraphernalia to turn to home sales. Because Prohibition seemed so laughable, they created whimsical cocktail shakers. Residential imbibers found them in the shapes of skyscrapers, lighthouses, golf bags with ball finials, cocks, and chickens (of course), penguins, and my favorite, the watering can. From the 1920s to mid 1930s the upper middle class purchased these implements created in sterling. Right at this time the drinking glass industry really poked fun at Prohibition. One manufacturer, McKee Glass, designed a flesh colored tumbler with a naked female posterior to the top. Displayed upside-down, they called those glasses “Bottoms Up.”

Then came the Stock Crash followed by the Great Depression, which also didn’t stop the Drinks Accoutrement industry. Instead of sterling shakers the “family” purchased chrome, or silver plate, or glass gear. When Roosevelt repealed Prohibition in 1933, the industry released sleek new Art Deco designs, seriously elegant and streamlined.

Objects Got Whimsical Again

The Tiki glass emerged after WWII when the middle class family reunited adn they did entertaining on the cheap at home. At this point we get gold embellished illustrated glassware, and all manner of colored glass shapes. We get sets like GR’s, elegantly presentation-boxed, meant for gift giving. People used them, hopefully, only once a day around 5-6 pm in a social ritual of mixing a drink.

You see GR’s set features ice tongs, a double jigger, two styles of bottle openers, a citrus knife, and a long martini stirrer. What’s missing? A wine opener, because cocktail connoisseurs used this set for hard liquor imbibement. Wine was for sissies. The set also shows us the maturation of the drink accoutrement industry. Manufacturing such a set involves plastics, metals, hardware (metal casting), custom fasteners, much engineering, chrome and gold tone flashing, and fine packaging.

I see these Riviera sets advertised as Mad Men specials online for $50-75.