In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century the temperance question did not enter the heads of the fine gentlemen of the day, and the serving of wine was an important consideration. The cellaret or wine cooler accompanied the sideboard, which in the drawings of Hepplewhite, Shearer, and Sheraton had bottle drawers.
Illus. 90.—Sheraton Mixing-table, 1790.
What Shearer called “a gentleman’s social table” was designed by several, with conveniences for bottles, glasses, and biscuit, and for facilitating the progress of the wine around the table. In this country the mixing of punch or other beverages was furthered by a piece of furniture called a mixing table.
Illus. 91.—Mixing-table, 1810-1820.
Mrs. Charles Custis Harrison, of St. David’s, Pennsylvania, owns the mixing table in Illustration [90], and a sideboard to match it. Both pieces were inherited from Robert Morris, in whose famous mansion in Philadelphia they stood. The wood of the table is mahogany and the drawers and doors are of satinwood, finely inlaid. There is a well in the top for a bowl, in which was brewed the punch of the Philadelphia forefathers. The cover of the table is hinged, and the four shelves which show in the illustration fold flat when the cover is down.
The table in Illustration [91] belongs to the Misses Garrett of Williamsburg, Virginia, and is known as a “mint julep” table, having been made for the concocting of that Southern beverage by a Baltimore cabinet-maker. There are shelves behind the door for the accessories to the julep, and for the mixing of it the top of the table is marble.