The Old West saloon, with swinging doors and a bar filled with dusty and tired cowboys, has been thoroughly cemented in our minds after years of fictionalization in print and on the silver screen. When the barkeep asks what one such character will have, the answer is invariably whiskey. A small glass is poured, and the cowboy slaps an unknown coin or two down by way of payment. The quantities are generally irrelevant to any such tale, but it does make us wonder: What did these spirits actually cost in those days? To find the answer, we spoke with Mark Boardman, Old West historian and editor of Arizona’s Tombstone Epitaph newspaper, published just steps away from the O.K. Corral Gunfight Site.
Čeprav se je podoba prašno zapuščenega saloona skoraj takoj razšla, je na njenem mestu nastala jasna slika. “Ko so mesta rasla — včasih zelo hitro,” pravi Boardman, “so posegali po vrhunskih pijačah, da bi ustvarili vzdušje prefinjenosti.” Poceni viski v neoznačeni steklenici (kot ga vidimo v mnogih zahodnjaških filmih) verjetno ni bil tisto, kar so ponujali po celotnem Zahodu. Nizkocenovni viskiji so zagotovo obstajali, vendar, kar ni presenetljivo, so večino strank hoteli popiti dober izdelek.
“V takšnih krajih — zlasti v mestu, ki je vzniknilo z gostega gospodarstva in je bilo težko dostopno — bi steklenica vrhunskega viskija stala približno 3 dolarje,” pojasnjuje Boardman. “Požirek (ali njegov ekvivalent) bi verjetno stala 25 centov.” Izberemo leto sredi obdobja Divjega zahoda — za primerjavo 1875 — in 3 dolarji, porabljeni za to steklenico, bi danes znašali okoli 91 dolarjev. Za ta požirek 0,25 USD pa bi bilo približno 7,60 USD.
1870s whiskey prices versus today’s
It’s difficult to define exactly what qualifies as a fine whiskey when comparing the present to a century and half ago. Generally, whiskey experts tend to say that the $40 to $70 range is where premium bottles of whiskey can be found, and the market is full of good bottles of whiskey under $60 — roughly one-third cheaper than what a cowboy paid for whiskey in the Old West. Even the budget whiskeys of today, though — those in the $20 to $25 range — are much better than what was being served on the cheap back then.
Težko je natančno opredeliti, kaj šteje za vrhunski viski, ko primerjamo danes z obdobjem pred več kot 150 leti. Običajno strokovnjaki za viskije menijo, da razpon 40–70 dolarjev predstavlja mesto, kjer najdemo vrhunske steklenice, in trg je poln dobrih steklenic pod 60 dolarjev — kar je približno tretjino cene manj, kot jo je kavboj plačal za viski v Old Westu. Tudi danes najdene poceni viskiji, tisti v razponu 20–25 dolarjev, so veliko boljši od tistega, kar je bilo na poceni ponudbi v tistem času.
»Res poceni stvar je stala približno nickel,« pravi Boardman, misleč na ceno enega kozarca. To bi danes znašalo okoli 1,50 USD. Poceni pijača je bila gotovo poceni, vendar slabše kakovosti kot tisto, kar bi našli v celo najnižji sodobni jam bar. To ni bila rotgut, narejena z raznimi škodljivimi kemikalijami, ampak grozno okusni poceni viski Divjega Zahoda je morda bil zmešan z rečno vodo, melaso in tobakom, namenjen razrediti, okrepiti okus in barvo dragocenega viskija ter ga razširiti nekoliko dlje.
Rotgut in druge razlage Old West viskija
Interestingly, though, as much as popular media has fixed the idea in our minds that straight whiskey was the drink of the Wild West, historians beg to differ. “In Tombstone, for example,” Boardman shares, “if you check drink ads and menus, the most popular beverages were mixed drinks — gin fizzes and the like.” It might shatter the image a bit, picturing that dusty cowboy sipping daintily at a frothy gin fizz in a coupe glass rather than slamming back one whiskey after another, but one should think twice before arguing with a historian.
Zanimivo je, vendar kar popularni mediji vnašajo v naše misli, da je bil čisti viski pijača Divjega Zahoda, vendar zgodoviniki niso popolnoma prepričani. “V Tombstoneu, na primer,” deli Boardman, “če preverite oglase za pijačo in jedilnike, so bile najbolj priljubljene mešane pijače — gin fizz in podobne.” To morda razbije sliko, ko si prašni kavboj privošči eleganten gin fizz v kupu kozarcev namesto tega, da bi na vsak požirek spustil viski, vendar se je treba dvakrat zamisliti, preden se razpravlja z zgodovinarjem.
“Whiskey and beer were way down the list in terms of demand,” Boardman says. “If folks were going to a fancy saloon, they wanted a fancy drink as well.”
“Viski in pivo sta bila zelo nizko na seznamu povpraševanja,” pravi Boardman. “Če so ljudje šli v razkošno saloon, so si želeli tudi razkošno pijačo.”
Cocktails, of course, weren’t the only other offering that one might find in such a place. Old West cowboys also drank sarsaparilla, a cousin of root beer made from a vine native to Central and South America, and even though the beer found in saloons might’ve been bad, it was another option. Add to that the many alcoholic tonics, elixirs, and bitters consumed at the time, and the bar menu starts to look more modern than the movies would have you believe.
Seveda koktejli niso bili edina ponudba v takem kraju. Kavboji Starega Zahoda so pili tudi sarsaparillo, sorodnico koreninskega piva, narejenega iz rastline, ki izvira iz Srednje in Južne Amerike, in čeprav je bilo pivo v salonih morda slabo, je bila to še ena možnost. K temu dodajmo številne alkoholne tonike, eliksirje in bitterje, ki so se v tistem času uživali, in meni bara postane bolj moder, kot bi vas filmi prepričali.
With a rough inflation-adjusted price of over $90 a bottle, whiskey wasn’t cheap in the Old West. That said, drinks like whiskey punches, whiskey slings, and whiskey cocktails all made use of that signature spirit. With a per-drink cost of around $7.60, things start to look a bit more reasonable. Compared to the $12 to $30 average cost of a cocktail in Las Vegas, that’s downright affordable.
S približno inflacijsko prilagojeno ceno več kot 90 dolarjev na steklenico viskija, viski ni bil poceni v Starem Zahodu. Kljub temu so napitki, kot so viski punč, viski sling in viski koktejli vsi uporabljali to znamenito žganje. S ceno na kozarec okoli 7,60 dolarja se zadeve pričnijo zdeti bolj razumno. V primerjavi z običajno ceno koktajla v Las Vegasu, ki se giblje med 12 in 30 dolarji, je to vsekakor dostopno.
