"Modern American" cocktail Set

Health to the Bride and Groom. Modern — sophisticated — luxurious — toast happiness to the bride and groom, and present them with a beverage set to return the compliment when other members of the young aristocracy marry and also are made the proud recipients of such sterling splendor.

At the height of Prohibition (1919 – 33) in the 1920s, the term “beverage set” became a euphemism for a cocktail set. Thus the above-mentioned toasts, published in Gorham’s promotional text, were meant to accompany alcohol consumption, despite the federal ban. Cocktails became popular during Prohibition, for the ancillary juices or seltzers masked what was often substandard bathtub gin. Due in part to the furtiveness of this social activity, cocktail services of the era were chiefly made of inexpensive glass, steel, or chrome-plated brass; only a small number were produced in silver, a particularly elite material for such a newly fashionable purpose.

The martini, a gin-based mixed drink popular at the time, lent its name to the broad cone-shaped drinking glass in which it was served. Glass was the most common material for drinking vessels; yet as with most manufacturers of metal drinking services of the period, Gorham chose to market martini glasses in silver, then an uncharacteristic material.

Due to the interchangeability of items in the Modern American line, this cocktail service was intended to be used with the tray shown in the coffee service (cat. no. 341).

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.