Heading: (Cocktails)
Author: Thomas, Jerry
Title: The Bon Vivant's Companion...or...How to Mix Drinks
Place Published: New York
Publisher:Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 1930
Description:

Introduction by Herbert Asbury. Illustrated from the original wood engravings. Pictorial cloth. Sixth printing.

Jeremiah (Jerry) P. Thomas (1830-1885) was perhaps the best-known American bartender of the 19th century; because of his pioneering work in popularizing cocktails across the United States, he is considered "the father of American mixology." As indicated by some pencil marginalia, the previous owner seems to have enjoyed the "Tom and Jerry" sometimes called the Jerry Thomas, a punch with a recipe calling for 5 pounds of sugar, a dozen eggs, Jamaica rum, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.

From the depths of Prohibition Herbert Asbury recalled paradise before the expulsion from the garden, "Briefly, Jerry Thomas was a bartender. But what a bartender! His name should not be mentioned in the same breath with that of the frowsy gorilla who, in these dark days of Prohibition, may be found lounging behind the bar of a dingy basement speakeasy, shloshing luke-warm ginger ale into a dirty glass half-filled with raw alcohol, and then calling the unspeakable concoction a drink. Jerry Thomas had nothing in common with thhis Volsteadian ape; there is no more a basis for comparison than there is between Michelangelo and Bud Fisher, or Dante and Eddie Guest. For Jerry Thomas was neither frowsy nor a simian; he was an imposing and lordly figure of a man, portly, sleek and jovial, yet possessed of immense dignity..." - Introduction.

Only light wear; hints of toning to leaves; about near fine.