Here's How / To Mix Them

August 22, 2009

Here's How / To Mix Them

Imagine a forty-year quest for the "perfect steak" , which ends sadly with no perfect steak ever found, after thousands of slabs in the finest dining establishments in the world. This then, is the famous tragedy in the life of Maurice C. Dreicer, mixologist , radio personality, author and Manhattan native. Along with inventing a "device for testing caviar" and hosting the radio programs "Find the Phoney" and "What's It Worth?", Dreicer found time to record the best-selling 10" ep: Here's How / To Mix Them, which of course you recall is the "world's only verbal cocktail manual".

One of the terrific things about "instruction and how-to records" is the variety of the voices on them. Many rather drab subjects are enlivened by the amazing vocal qualities of the speakers that perform them. Once you've collected a good deal of industrial / private / and publicly-available spoken word instruction discs, some of them become old friends that are very enjoyable to visit over and over. My homey Maurice is right up near the top of my list of great radio voices, and he delivers a very entertaining bartender's guide indeed on this short album.

Let's hear from the liner notes:

"...internationally famous gourmet, who has been referred to by TRUE magazine as 'a kind of Pulitzer Prize committee of one in the nourishment field' has spent over thirty years in time, over half a million dollars in money, and over two million miles in travel (including fifteen trips to Europe) to gather the information for the WORLD'S ONLY VERBAL COCKTAIL MANUAL.

Dreicer is 'Special Gourmet Advisor' to the Dinkler Hotel Chain, 'Supervising Gourmet Advisor' to the Western Hills Hotel and 'Special Gourmet Consultant' to the Buitoni Macaroni Company. He is also President of the ALE LEAGUE OF THE WORLD, Founder and President of the ORDER OF THE GREAT DINING ESTABLISHMENTS OF THE WORLD, and President of CIGAR SMOKERS UNITED."

Even teetotallers should enjoy this delightful piece, as Dreicer is just damned entertaining, and has a very unique and hilarious voice and delivery. He's cosmopolitan and dignified, but, obviously eccentric nonethless. Reminds me a bit of Criswell.

Let's just play the entire record, which originally was pressed as one big track on each side, and when I digitized it years ago, I broke it up into sections for easier DJing.

Here is a reconstructed cover and new tracklist.

And the six tracks themselves:

1 The Martini Family 2 The Manhattan, etc. 3 The Long Drinks, pt 1 4 The Long Drinks pt 2 5 The Bloody Mary Story 6 A Few Unusual Drinks

Alright, now master all of these and you too can be an expert MIXOLOGIST !

Posted by Listener Mindwrecker on August 22, 2009 at 07:00 PM in Listener Mindwrecker's Posts, MP3s, Radio | Permalink