688 Recipes for Drinks

[Anon] A Lifetime Collection of 688 Recipes for Drinks. [FIRST EDITION] Herbert Jenkins: London, 1934. 12mo (170x105mm) beige, black lettered bds, viii,[2],11-124,[4]pp. Almost Near Fine; spine sm chip & sm water marks; t.e soiled, else fine

[Anon]

A Life Time Collection of 688 Recipes for Drinks

London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd, 1934. First edition. Printed by Purnell & Sons, Paulton & London.

Octavo (170x110mm) ecru, black lettered cloth boards, viii,[2],11-124,[4 advertisements]pp.

Original dust jacket, un-clipped, spine lightly soiled and darkened, discrete 3mm hole to spine, small closed tears, otherwise uncommonly bright and crisp; original boards top edge faintly foxed, discrete discolouration at spine foot, top edges a trifle dusty; pages uncommonly crisp and clean.

An excellent reference for "drinks, cocktails, daiseys, cobblers, collins, coolers, cups, egg nogs, flips, high balls, punches, rickeys, sours, fizzes, juleps, hot drinks, lemonades etc etc" that lists ingredients and quantities but gives only perfunctory instruction as to method, enlarged in the short introduction.

As noted in the introduction: "...if on checking the drinks at the end of a cheery evening, you find you've sampled every recipe in this book, you can rest assured your party was a big success."

Although the author is anonymous, some have suggested that the author was Robert Vermeire or that the content or recipes were partially 'cribbed' from Vermeire's 1922 "Cocktails: how to mix them" also published by Herbert Jenkins (and which is advertised at the rear).  There are some similarities in a few recipes and the introductory text has some similar turns of phrase, however there is little textual evidence to support the theory as there are far more cocktails in this volume (albeit a decade later) and there is very little repetition or recipes in a number of chapters.  Vermeire had returned to Europe in the early 1920s and his bar failed in 1930 during the depression.

An almost near fine copy of a scarce cocktail book.  Uncommon in this condition.

§ OCLC records 9 holdings all editions; Copac records 3 holdings, this edition.
§ Noling p.479; in EUVS; not in the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails.