Born: 14 March 1836, United Kingdom
Died: 6 February 1865
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Isabella Mary Mayson
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Jerry Thomas is widely credited as the world’s first mixologist after publishing his Bar-Tender’s Guide in 1862, the first book in the U.S. dedicated solely to cocktail recipes. But women had been publishing cookbooks that included such recipes for centuries, not least of which was Isabella Beeton’s Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Published the year before Thomas’s, it included recipes for beers, ales, cordials, cocktails, and punches. In terms of which was more influential, Thomas’s book sold 8,000 copies—Beeton’s sold over 2 million internationally, outsold at the time only by the Bible.