Episode 44: The Greatest Show on Earth – Barnum (was right) Cocktail

Episode #44 features a popular personality from the cocktail era: Mr. PT Barnum. The name of the cocktail refers to Barnum's supposed famous saying that a "sucker is born every minute." But even as we look into this cocktail we can't verify much of anything and even the attribution of that phrase seems off. Given that Barnum was a temperance speaker from 1850 to his death, an attribution from him directly seems unlikely. We doubt he was making cocktails or ordering cocktails for himself or anyone else. Strangely enough, Jerry Thomas, the bartender who first published his recipes in 1862, owned a saloon beneath Barnum's American Museum on Broadway in New York and it seems that they did in fact know each other, but Thomas doesn't have the cocktail in his book which seems unlikely if he was the original creator. The first place Jay does find the Barnum Was Right Cocktail is in Trader Vic's cocktail book, published much later than would be expected from a cocktail bearing Barnum's name. Because of its nonexi...