Tom Bullock

Tom Bullock (1872–1964) was a Black American bartender in the pre-Prohibition era.

He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 18, 1872,[1] one of at least three children of Thomas Bullock, his father, a former slave who fought for the Union Army, according to US Census records.[1]

Bullock was a bartender at the Pendennis Club, the Kenton Club, and most notably the St. Louis Country Club, and is the first known African-American author to publish a cocktail manual, The Ideal Bartender.[2][3] His book is notable as one of the last cocktail manuals published before Prohibition, providing a rare view onto pre-Prohibition cocktail recipes and drinking culture in America.

Bullock was known to be a bartender and friend to George Herbert Walker, who wrote an introduction to his cocktail manual. In 1913, he was involved in a libel case when ex-President Theodore Roosevelt sued for alleged libel regarding his drinking habits, and asserted he had only had a few sips of a mint julep cocktail made by Bullock. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch disputed Roosevelt's claim, asserting that no one could fail to finish one of Bullock's cocktails.[4]

Bullock died in 1964.[5]

Cocktail historian David Wondrich believes that Bullock may have been one of the first bartenders to create a variant of the gimlet.[2]