Copperplate engraving after George Cruikshank from John Caulfield's Portraits, Memoirs and Characters of Remarkable Persons, Young, London, 1819. Licensed from alamy.com

James Ashley

1698–1776

The first celebrity mixologist

James Ashley ran his famous London punch house, London Coffee-House and Punch-House, from 1731 until his death in 1776. Ashley himself was something of a public figure with an instinct for self-promotion, appearing often in the written record. Ashley seems to have pioneered the single serving punch. His barkeepers were women, as was normal in England.