Meet Me at the Hokey-Pokey Cart for A Horse’s Neck or Zaza Cocktail!

In researching my post for The Waldorf Astoria, I came across an article from 1931 with such colorfully written and interesting facts about the original Waldorf Astoria hotel, that I just had to make an addendum and share them with you!

Here are my fave tid-bits, but you can read the entire article here:  “At Home To Society” on Old & Sold Antique Digest.

The Waldorf-Astoria, in fact, was the first hotel to abolish the old-fashioned Ladies’ Parlor. fashionable America was beginning to realize that equality is not a word to be amended with strange and ludicrous provisions.

Imagine a lady, in a first-class hotel, not being able to sit in the same public room with gentlemen! Imagine them being denied the same forms of general entertainment afforded the male guests! The Waldorf-Astoria, defying such an outmoded attitude, provided the ladies with even billiard-tables, which were located in the South Cafe, ping-pong tables in the gallery, and the use of various public rooms.

It went further. It introduced bridge. Bridge then began to be the rage. But the Waldorf-Astoria was one of the first hotels to encourage the game and to provide facilities for those interested. Again, the hotel had much to do with popularizing the tea hour in public places.

But I think this is my absolute fave of all:

“Indeed, the newspapers were startled in 1906 by the appearance in the Waldorf-Astoria of a strange apparatus they called the “moving bar.” It simply was the tea-wagon we use today. But the startled World had this surprising comment to make:

“You order a Martini cocktail for the lady, with a cherry in it, and a highball for yourself. Or perhaps you ask for tea. Presto! Along comes an outfit that at a distance looks like a hokey-pokey cart, run by one of old Dr. Woodbury’s `White Wings.’ It is the perambulating bar and the white-winged chauffeur of the machine is a qualified mixologist, as well as a tea-server. Right before your eyes he will deftly and daintily mix you up anything you may call for, from a `horse’s neck’ to a Zaza cocktail with a cherry, an olive, a sprig of mint, a shred of pine-apple, lemon, or orange.”

Meet Me at the Hokey-Pokey Cart “The Perambulating Bar” for A Horse’s Neck or a Zaza Cocktail!