Shaking up the Jazz Age - a brief history of the cocktail shaker
04 August 2023 While some of the earliest drinks mixers date back to the 1870s, the first ‘golden age’ of the cocktail shaker was the inter-war decades – the era of the cocktail party, the night club and the speakeasy. As the US threw off the shackles of Prohibition and hipsters partied through the Depression, there was an explosion of designs in silver, silver plate, glass and chrome.
A silver plate cocktail set designed by Lurelle Van Arsdale Guild (1898-1985) for the International Silver Company, Connecticut, patented in 1927, £700-900 at Dreweatts, Newbury, August 15.
The list of manufacturers who made cocktail shakers and accessories in the 20s and 30s reads like a roll-call of the great luxury houses of the early 20th century: Asprey, Cartier, Tiffany, Alfred Dunhill, Louis Vuitton, Puiforcat, Lalique and Baccarat.
Most were relatively simple ‘streamlined’ three-piece models. On a purely functional level these are hard to beat. However, it was the novelties that really made the party swing.
Perhaps the first of the ‘figurals’ was a golf bag shaker issued by the Derby Silver Plate Company of Connecticut in 1926. By the time the thirst for new designs was quenched by the onset of the Second World War and the arrival of the electric blender, there were cocktail shakers formed as dumbbells, handbells, champagne bottles, tanks, monoplanes, airships, ship’s lanterns and penguins.
Some of these paten models were hugely expensive at the time. The much-cherished Thirst Extinguisher modelled as a fire extinguisher introduced to the Asprey range in 1932 was priced at a cool 25 guineas.
Many are pictured in the collecting ‘bible The Cocktail Shaker penned by Simon Khachadourian of London’s Pullman Gallery in 2000.
Filled with anecdotes, archive photographs and countless images of rare and classic shakers, this was the beginning of a social media-fuelled renaissance that took cocktails to new levels of popularity. How better to convey your ‘best life’ on Instagram than by mixing a mojito in a vintage shaker?
Tiffany & Co silver plated cocktail shaker with sliding measure lid, £120-180 at Hansons, Etwall, August 10.
Mid-century American glass and chrome ‘Map of the USA’ cocktail set, £300-500 at Chiswick Auction, London, August 23
The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock and George Rumbold is a classic of the Art Deco era. This second edition, second impression in original terracotta cloth from 1933 has an estimate of £60-80 at Mellors & Kirk in Nottingham on August 15-17. First edition copies in dust jackets bring much more.
Mid-century silver-plated Napier patent Dial-a-Cocktail shaker with gilt names and ingredients, £100-150 at Hansons, Etwall, August 10.