In her newest book, Toni Tipton-Martin seeks to set the record straight on the tucked-away music venues that became cultural lifelines in the Black community. She examines the evolution of juke joints and their libations from backwoods liquor houses to upscale nightclubs, as well as the damaging stereotypes that grew with them.
Tipton-Martin, a former newspaper food editor who is now the editor-in-chief of Cook’s Country magazine, has collected Black cookbooks for decades to learn about the culinary contributions of her ancestors rarely acknowledged in mainstream media. That research led her to write two James Beard Award-winning books: “The Jemima Code” and “Jubilee.”
Her latest book, “Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs & Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks” (Potter, $30), picks up where those volumes left off, using traditional and contemporary recipes to show how Black mixology and bar culture has evolved. Chapters are organized by technique (fermented, batch, built, layered, shaken, stirred, zero-proof). Recipes within each are based on her findings, adapted so anyone can recreate them without investing in costly ingredients. Essays, headnotes and original antiquated recipes throughout pay homage to the drink-makers in boarding houses, restaurants, clubs, taverns, hotels and private homes who inspired her.
A recipe for Strawberry Wine dips into ancestral fermenting traditions. Caterers’ cookbooks inspired batch-made spirits including Planter’s Punch, Bowl of Eggnog, and Jerk-Spiced Bloody Mary. Gin & Juice 3.0 riffs on Snoop Dogg’s hip-hop anthem; Shandy Gaff, a layering of ginger beer and porter or ale, reveals its Caribbean connection.
The Cosmockpolitan is Tipton-Martin’s modernized take on the cranberry-orange punches populating many of her references. It’s in the final chapter, Zero Proof. Those spirit-free elixirs, she writes, represent another often-overlooked aspect of American beverage history, “namely that Black folks made the choice to drink liquor — or not — as an expression of self-empowerment.”
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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