This is an image of one of the cases we were setting up for the award winning exhibit "Havens in a Heartless World: Virginia City's Saloons and the Archaeology of the Wild West," drawing on the excavation of four saloons in Virginia City, 1866-1885. We found evidence of every sort of drink from these saloons - whiskey, gin, brandy, draft beer, bottled ale from Glasgow (the cream-colored bottles), mineral water from Germany (the orange, ceramic bottle), champagne, port, soda pop, ginger (for flavoring of beer, etc.), various bitters for mixed drinks, purified/carbon filtered water, and other things I'm forgetting - but if you can think of it, they probably served it. Primary source documentation talks a great deal of innovations in mixed drinks.
Sources to consider include Kelly Dixon (who supervised two of the four excavations) Boomtown Saloons and my book, Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past(2012), which deals with general questions of archaeology including the saloons.
Edit: Here's a bonus image of the original Piper's Old Corner Bar, which was founded in 1860 and burned in 1863. It was a one-bit saloon, which means it offered a glass of whiskey or any other type of drink (beer and wine) for 12 1/2 cents - as opposed to the upper class "two-bit" saloon. Notice the sign advertises "wines, liquors, etc.", which provides a hint as to what people thought a saloon should be offering.
Edit 2: thanks to those who gilded the answer. Very kind and much appreciated.
Edit 3: Throughout this thread there is an ongoing discussion of chilling drinks and the use and storage of ice. I should have mentioned the industrial use of ice in Virginia City and the Comstock mines. Parts of the underground workplace were so hot that miners had to take numerous breaks to bring down their body temperatures. There were ice stations provided so they miners could drink ice water and use cold wet towels to cool off. Since this was required twelve months of the year, the consumption of ice by the mines - which was a matter of survival underground - was the first demand for ice in the community. I want to make certain that this observation is part of this thread.
I want to jump on this, because it always was of interest for me. At what temperature would beer have been served. And what kinds of beer were common back then? Was it produced locally or further east? Who were the big players in the brewery-industry back then?
Thanks!
David Wondrich's book Imbibe gives a great look into mixology and drinking culture in America, going back to colonial times, up through prohibition and beyond.
He makes particular reference to Jerry Thomas' Bartenders' Guide, from 1862 (reprinted and revised in 1887). In it are dozens and dozens of recipes for cocktails, punches, etc. Modern drinkers will recognize such things as the Whiskey Sour, Tom Collins, Mint Julep, Manhattan Cocktail, and Whiskey Cocktail (now called an Old Fashioned-Cocktail). All these drinks were well known in that era.
Wondrich mentions a drink that's now mostly forgotten - the Sherry Cobbler, made of sherry, fruit, and sugar, shaken with ice. He quotes a bartender writing in 1888 who says it is "without a doubt the most popular beverage in the country." It was served over ice, and sipped through a straw - two things that were new and in vogue in the mid to late 1800s.
Many real western saloons did not just serve whiskey and beer but also things like brandy and even champagne.
One of the very few western movies to show this was One Eyed Jacks, where Marlon Brando walks into a saloon and orders a brandy.
What about the famous 'sasperilla'? I remember hearing a lot of people ordering it on the saloons.
hi! you'll be interested in these other recent related threads
How strong was the alcohol in those days?
In a related question, did absynthe ever really make a mark in the US as it was portrayed to have in europe?
Budweiser would become popular in the latter 1900s throughout the west. It was the first pasteurized beer and one of the first national brands. They also marketed branded posters of scantily clad women to hang in saloons as early advertising. It was really the first popular light lager modeled after the Bohemian beer of the same name and Pilsner Urquel.
