Mad mixologist Warren Bobrow is, you could say, continuing a family tradition. “My grandfather was in the snake oil business,” says the author of four ornately-titled cocktail books (including Apothecary Cocktails: Restorative Drinks from Yesterday and Today, Whiskey Cocktails: Rediscovered Classics and Contemporary Craft Drinks Using the World’s Most Popular Spirit, and Bitters and Shrub Syrup Cocktails: Restorative Vintage Cocktails, Mocktails, and Elixirs).
He says his grandfather, Matthew Rosenhaus, was among the creators of Geritol, a boozy patent medicine ultimately investigated in 1959 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and its manufacturers hit with heavy fines for making misleading claims about its health benefits.