The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Wintry weather, holiday gatherings, and cozy evenings by the fire with a good book... ah, how we love this time of year! And we love immersing ourselves in the history of celebrations and traditions of our ancestors. Here, we've gathered a collection of our winter-themed articles for your cozy reading enjoyment!

Come on it's Lovely Weather for Sleigh Bells and Skating Parties!
Winter sports have been popular in America for hundreds of years. But in the 1800s and early 20th century, winter pastimes not only provided fun and exercise, they also served as much-anticipated and enjoyed social gatherings. Keep reading >>>


Worth a Thousand Words:
The Christmas Coach
The Christmas Coach depicts a scene in Philadelphia in 1795 and features a wealthy woman departing the coach just before sunset on Christmas Eve to a snow-covered street filled with a representation of the great diversity of one of early America's largest cities. Keep reading >>>

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q:
It's Champagne, Dahling
Today I'm toasting champagne, that most glamorous of beverages. That decadent, frivolous, sinful, delightful nectar of the gods, adored by royalty and nobility since its invention in 1531, and in later centuries by the masses as it became widely available. Champagne flows freely through many a novel. Keep reading >>>


Book to Reel: A Christmas Carol
for Scrooge
There are many film versions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, some traditional, some modern, some with a twist. The truth is, I can watch any of them and enjoy it. It is such a powerful tale of redemption that it works regardless of casting, setting, or medium. Keep reading >>>

Sample Sunday: The Romance of a Christmas Card

“My door is on the latch tonight,
The hearth fire is aglow.
I seem to hear swift passing feet—
The Christ Child in the snow.
My heart is open wide tonight
For stranger, kith or kin.
I would not bar a single door
Where Love might enter in!”

Keep reading >>>

Happy Holidays from the Vintage Reader family to yours!

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: The Corpse Reviver

It's a special Halloween edition of Vintage Happy Hour, and as promised, our second holiday-inspired selection is at hand! Whether you need a pick-me-up after dressing up and toting the kids around trick-or-treating, a remedy for a Halloween party hangover, or just a jump start to bring you out of that candy coma, consider the Corpse Reviver! (Cue the ominous, spooky music.)

The Corpse Reviver is a classic cocktail--one that seems to only be called upon for Halloween these days, but back in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a popular anytime libation, particularly so in the mornings, when having a cocktail was an acceptable and widely practiced custom. "Corpse reviver" used to be a generic term pretty much equivalent to "hair of the dog" by today's comparison, and such cocktails were touted as cure-alls for whatever ails ya. The Corpse Reviver first appeared (where else?) in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book, and good old Harry gives us two variations to try, along with caveats for their enjoyment.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Satan's Whiskers

Fall is in evidence everywhere you look, Halloween is just around the corner, and we're going to be celebrating our newest release, At the Sign of the Jack O' Lantern, with two spooky Vintage Happy Hours this month! First up, a devilish twist on the Bronx martini with an air of mystery surrounding its origins: Satan’s Whiskers.

The Satan's Whiskers cocktail first appeared in print in 1930 in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book, and it appears in two variations, depending on whether your vision of Satan has a straight beard or a curly one. If you're going for straight, make it with Grand Marnier; if you like yours curly, make it with orange curaçao.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Sherry is Merry

We've had a lot of fun this summer delving into fruity, refreshing beverages from days of yore, and now that the weather is changing, we thought it was time to switch gears and indulge in libations perfect for warm days that finish with cool evenings. First up is a spirit that flows freely throughout the colony of Jamestown in 1621 in Mary Johnston's bestselling novel of 1900, To Have and to Hold.

When a huge warship first appears off the point making its way to Jamestown Harbor, the colonists fear the Spanish have come to make war on them. But it turns out to be a good old English ship, and though one of its passengers has come to make a great deal of trouble for newlyweds Ralph and Jocelyn Percy, it's also carrying precious cargo everyone's happy to see: wine. Sherry, to be precise.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: The Sidecar

Today we're feting the Sidecar cocktail, in honor of one of the unsung heroes among American literary characters, Eugene Morgan, the charismatic and enterprising automobile inventor who loses the love of his life, not once, but twice, in Booth Tarkington's classic The Magnificent Ambersons.

There are conflicting reports regarding the origin of the Sidecar, and both Paris and London lay claim to it. But the most popular version of the history of the Sidecar says that it was created during World War I in a Paris bar (Harry's New York Bar, to be precise) at the behest of an American army captain who was feeling a bit under the weather and requested a fortifying drink to ward off the winter chill. Brandy was the best choice for self-medication, but no self-respecting French bartender could serve an after-dinner drink as an aperitif, so the nameless magician who served the captain mixed it with equal parts orange-flavored Cointreau liqueur and fresh lemon juice for a classic sweet-and-sour-type cocktail chock full of vitamin C.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Lemon Squash

It's another scorcher on the East Coast today! How about a little refreshment? I found the perfect subject for a Vintage Happy Hour post in one of the stories in our short story collection, Ladies in Waiting by Kate Douglas Wiggin. In A Cathedral Courtship, New York native Kitty Schyuler is touring the cathedral towns of England, and is just dying to experience the England she's read all about in her favorite romance novels. Left on her own to order dinner, she attempts to order a thoroughly English meal:

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Old-Fashioneds in the Orchard

In Kilmeny of the Orchard, Prince Edward Island is an idyllic little summer getaway for Eric Marshall. A place to relax and enjoy the rustic isolation from the worries of the mainland, to embrace a slower pace and a more simple style of living, and to wander into an old orchard and fall in love beneath the boughs of an apple tree.

We've had a gorgeous little two-day reprieve from the scorching heat and stifling humidity here in Virginia, and it's shaping up to be the perfect evening to sit outside with a refreshing beverage, so I thought for this edition of Vintage Happy Hour I'd serve up some fruity twists on an old classic in honor of Kilmeny, Prince Edward Island, and lazy summer days! The Old-Fashioned is one of the earliest known cocktail recipes, and in fact, in 1806, the definition of "cocktail" was the recipe for an Old-Fashioned: "a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar." Though the term "Old-Fashioned" wouldn't come into use until the 1880s.

Vintage Happy Hour: It's Hotter Than Hades Recap

Sorry, ya'll. It's so hot I can't even work up the energy for a new Vintage Happy Hour post. But I am desperately in need of some refreshment, so I thought I'd compile all of our Happy Hours to date in a convenient little post, kick back with a drink, chug it before the ice melts, and dream of cooler days. Feel free to join me! Click the pics to check out the beverages we've been enjoying this year.

Which one is your favorite?

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Careful . . . It Bites!

I've been in a Western mood ever since falling in love with Her Prairie Knight by B.M. Bower, so I thought today's Vintage Happy Hour would be the perfect time to brush up on my Western drinking history!

Of course, in the Old West most everybody was drinking whiskey. It was cheap and there was plenty of it. But it didn't always taste good. Saloon owners cut it with anything from turpentine to gunpowder to stretch a bottle further and make another buck. By the early 20th century, cocktails were making their way west, and it should be no surprise that the first Western cocktails were whiskey based. One of the most famous is the Rattlesnake.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: The Belmont Breeze

Today we're rounding out our Triple Crown cocktail posts with the Belmont Breeze, official drink of the Belmont Stakes. But the Belmont Breeze hasn't always been the official beverage. Originally, bartenders at the track whipped up White Carnations for thirsty race viewers. The cocktail was named in honor of the blanket of carnations Belmont Stakes winners receive in the winner's circle. But it's a bit of an old-fashioned cocktail, and in 1998 track officials began marketing to a younger crowd and a new cocktail was created: The Belmont Breeze.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: The Knickerbocker

For this week's Vintage Happy Hour, I was looking for a good summertime cocktail, and one that would help us celebrate our newest release: Dora Deane by Mary Jane Holmes. I needed something that would have been popular in 1858, when Dora Deane was first published, and since the novel takes place in the world of affluent New York country estate owners, I was also hoping to find a beverage that tied in to New York's history as well. As luck would have it, I happened upon the perfect drink, one that satisfied all of my requirements and also happens to be deliciously refreshing: The Knickerbocker.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: I'll Have Another Black-Eyed Susan!

Today we're talking about the official beverage of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of thoroughbred racing's hallowed Triple Crown. The Preakness was first run in 1873 at Pimlico Downs, and since 1940 Preakness winners have been draped with a blanket made of Maryland's official state flower: The Black-Eyed Susan. And somewhere in the early 1980s, a cocktail of the same name was born.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Mint Juleps at the Astor Roof Garden

I really was trying to stay away from the obvious choice for today's Vintage Happy Hour. Hoping to come up with something different, and wanting to learn more about the Astor Hotel Roof Garden Restaurant since reading about it in The Prince and Betty, I was researching and hoping to find a signature cocktail to blog about, when lo and behold I discovered patrons at the Astor Roof enjoyed light fare and refreshing drinks, and one of the most popular was . . . the mint julep. Coincidence, eh? So here I am, paying tribute to this timely cocktail.

The Astor Roof was a smash hit with New York's upper crust in the pre-Prohibition era of the Progressive Age, and it was a favorite haunt of John Maude and Rupert Smith in The Prince and Betty. As as a British native transplanted in New York to write for the new American version of Vanity Fair magazine, author P.G. Wodehouse was likely familiar with it too.

Vintage Happy Hour with Audra: Cin Cin Campari!

In 1860 in a small town near Milan, the liquor known as Campari was created. Originally called Bitter all'Uso d'Holanda, it is an infusion of aromatic herbs and other plants (such as ginseng) as well as fruit (like oranges and rhubarb). Made up of anywhere from twenty to sixty ingredients, it is a closely guarded secret. A "bitter" liquor, it’s considered medicinal in quality and was originally taken undiluted before lunch to aid in digestion.

The first Campari cocktail came about during the belle époque of the 1890s. Called the Milano-Torino after the source of its two main ingredients, Campari and vermouth (along with a shot of club soda), the drink was renamed the Americano after its popularity with Americans (and perhaps a marketing ploy to cause more Americans to order it). In 1960, Ian Fleming featured the Americano in his James Bond novel Casino Royale, the first alcoholic drink Bond orders, and in From a View to Kill Bond even clarifies he prefers drinking it over his usual choices when at an outside cafe.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: The Horse's Neck

In honor of the devil-may-care Georgie Amberson Minafer, from our newest release, The Magnificent Ambersons, that terror on horseback and behind the reins of a surrey, this evening we're paying tribute to the Horse's Neck.

The Horse's Neck is an American invention, made with brandy (or sometimes bourbon), ginger ale, and a long twist of lemon peel, usually served in an old-fashioned or highball glass. This cocktail's name is distinctive for being named for its garnish, and it actually started out in the 1890s as a non-alcoholic beverage, with crushed ice in place of alcohol, and it's still a popular refresher today. But by the early 1900s Americans were spiking it with brandy and calling it a "Horse's Neck with a kick," and it quickly caught on across the pond.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Guinness Time, Lads & Lassies

I don't even need to tell you what it is. It's instantly recognized all over the world by its rich color, thick head, and the pint glass designed for it. It's Guinness, the icon of Irish beers, and the drink of choice for many St. Patrick's Day celebrants!

O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsopp, Bass! Names that should be on every infant’s tongue. ~ C.V. Calverley, English Poet

Arthur Guinness began brewing ale in 1759 at the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin. Over the centuries, Guinness acquired a stellar reputation and a steady following via nothing other than word of mouth. In fact, the company did not even begin to advertise until the early 1900s. But even their advertising campaigns took on iconic stature, and in the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: It's Champagne, Dahling

Today I'm toasting champagne, that most glamorous of beverages. That decadent, frivolous, sinful, delightful nectar of the gods, adored by royalty and nobility since its invention in 1531, and in later centuries by the masses as it became widely available. Champagne flows freely through many a novel. (It flows freely through When A Man Marries--not a thing in the house for the quarantined guests to eat, but there's a cellar full of champagne!) It also flows freely through the glass of many a writer. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the literati: