How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivants Companion: to which is appended a manual for the manufacture of cordials, fancy syrups, &c. Illustrated with descriptive engravings. The whole containing over 600 valuable recipes.

A FINE COPY OF AN AMERICAN CLASSIC, "THE GRAND-FATHER OF BAR GUIDES", A COLLECTION OF THE FIRST THREE EDITIONS (PLUS ANOTHER): "COPIES IN COLLECTOR'S STATE...ARE JUST ABOUT UNKNOWN."

THOMAS, Jerry, formerly principal bar-tender at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York, and the Planter's House, St. Louis. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivants Companion, to which is appended a manual for the manufacture of cordials, fancy syrups, &c. Illustrated with descriptive engravings. The whole containing over 600 valuable recipes. By Christian Schultz. 12mo, original brown wavy-grained cloth with elaborate blind stamped decorative leaf design on both covers, front cover stamped, How to Mix Drinks Price $1.50 in gold,spine stamped How to Mix Drinks, with publisher's monogram on shield device at base, same device on rear cover in blind,pp. 244, [8] ads, with 10 in-text illustrations. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862. First Edition (& 3 others):

First Edition. When found this book, which was in print for more than 35 years, is invariably in poor condition. This is the finest copy we have seen in the last 50 years, bar none, having only a small blemish on the spine which appears to be a tiny burn. The cover stamping is bright, that on the spine slightly dull. Corners almost imperceptibly rubbed, and it is free of foxing. In fact, "Copies in collector's state, as here, are just about unknown. A most entertaining (and invigorating) little volume."-Seybolt, A Catalogue of the First Editions of First Books(1946), p. 70. Richard B. Harwell, in his scholarly work, The Mint Julep (University of Virginia Press, (1975), calls this "the grand-father of bar guides." This is a very rare example of a Dick & Fitzgerald book with a dated title-page. Revised and reprinted several times in the 19th century, and revised again in 1928 by Herbert Asbury, as The Bon-Vivant's Companion, in which form it was several times reprinted.


Contemporary gift inscription in pencil on binder's leaf: "George B. Shattuck from his Sister." Presented to noted future Boston physician George Brune Shattuck, M. D. (Aug. 18, 1845-March 12, 1923), when he was 17 years of age, by Eleanor Brune Shattuck (1842-1918), his other sister having died before book publication. The recipient was one of five generations of well known Boston physicians, beginning in 1770. Shattuck entered Harvard in 1861, and, choosing social life rather than his studies he experienced academic troubles that first year. President Thomas Hill wrote in some embarrassment to his father George C. Shattuck, Jr., Hersey Professor of Theory and Practice of Physick at Harvard's Medical School, that a vote of censure had been "reluctantly passed" by the faculty since "we have no evidence of time or effort on the College studies much less of such proficiency as ought to satisfy your reasonable expectations concerning him."-J. C. Douglas Marshall, Things Temporal and Things Eternal: The Life of George Cheyne Shattuck, Jr. (Posterity Press, 2006). Young George became a physician, founded Boston City Hospital, and served 31 years as editor of the Boston and Medical Journal, which in 1928 was renamed as The New England Journal of Medicine. Both his father and grandfather developed a close relationship with John James Audubon. "The author of his [Shattuck's] memorial in the Harvard Graduates Magazine would remember him as 'a very intelligent student, but his tastes were predominantly social and he was eminent in social matters...'"-Marshall, p. 199. It would seem this bartenders' guide might have held special interest for a Harvard freshman more interested in a good time rather than his studies. We thank Peter B. Logan, Audubon scholar, Novato, California, for information about the Shattuck siblings.
Cagle & Stafford, American Books on Food and Drink 1739-1950, #743, and Simon, Bibliotheca Gastronomica 1461, both incorrectly cite the undated 1862 copyright edition (see below) in blue cloth as the first edition. Unlike the two later copies herewith, this copy of the first edition has yellow advertising end papers. Not in Gabler, and completely muddled by Simon, and thus, Unzelman, who followed the former. WITH: How to Mix Drinks. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, n.d. (cop. 1862). 8vo, pp. [244] + [8] ads, in original blue cloth, front cover stamped in gold with illustration of a happy gentleman holding a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, surrounded by "The Bar Tender's Guide Price $2.50." Basically like the first edition with differences being that the title-page is undated; last page of text is not numbered; the ads are different. WITH: The Bar-Tender's Guide, or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks…an entirely new and enlarged edition. New York: Fitzgerald Publishing Corporation [cop. 1887]. 8vo, original black stamped, printed brown cloth (minor wear), pp. 130. This Third Edition also bears an intermediate "1876" copyright. It is Dick & Fitzgerald's final version of Thomas's book, about which Wonderich says, "whoever revised the book did a thoroughly workmanlike job. The old recipes were dried out and tightened up; new, up-to-date ones were added, and many of the ornamental English things were banished to a section at the end of the book with the comment: We give the following group of English drinks for the benefit of the curious in such matters. Many of them are rather troublesome to prepare, and some of them, which we have tried, have not yielded the satisfaction expected or desired." WITH: How to Mix Drinks. A Complete Bartender's Guide. Compliments of S. F. Eagan, Distiller and Wholesaler Dealer in Fine Old Whiskies, 141 Seneca Street, Buffalo, N. Y. [wrapper-title]. 12mo, original printed orange wrappers, pp. 69, [2] Index, [1] ad. [Buffalo, New York: n.d., ca. 187-?]. Prints Jerry Thomas's recipes, without attribution. Rear wrapper advertises "Great Western" Champagne from The Pleasant Valley Wine Co., Rheims, Steuben Co., N.Y., champagne which won the gold medal in Vienna in 1873, with that date pictured on the bottle label shown on front wrapper. Last few leaves mildly stained from the orange wrapper. Not in OCLC.

Current wisdom among the trade is that copies with the title gold stamped "The Bar-Tenders Guide Price $1.50", and drinking gentleman on front cover, constitutes the first edition, first binding, based on what evidence we don't know, except the non-bibliographical word of David Wondrich in Appendix II: The Bon Vivant's Companion, in his book Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar (2007), pp. 288-289. The cover of our copy is "How to Mix Drinks Price $1.50., as it was first advertised. Wondrich says Dick & Fitzgerald blazoned "the book's cover with the actual title…their original one, "Bar Tender's Guide," and continues by saying, "Judging by the number of surviving copies, and by the fact that Dick & Fitzgerald raised the price to $2 and then $3, demand must have been quite strong." Jerry Thomas's book was advertised first in Harper's Weekly, on June 7, 1862, with the earliest price on front cover, then again in the July 18, 1863, issue with the price having risen to $2.00, and the number of recipes grown from 600 to 700 (ours are 600). The cover of our First Edition offers the book with its earliest price, indicating that the first edition had at least two binding variants, with precedence apparently unknown. Wondrich's "Updated and Revised Edition" of 2015 ignores the subject entirely, by discarding all appendices. The First Edition is fine; the others very good, surely better than most, all in a morocco backed folding case.