The leading purveyor of professional barware and vintage cocktail books, Cocktail Kingdom expands its offerings of 19th and 20th century mixology manuals with the release of two reprints: Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The South American Gentleman’s Companion: Being An Exotic Drinking Book Or, Up & Down the Andes with Jigger, Beaker & Flask, originally published in 1951, with introduction penned by St. John Frizell, cocktail writer and owner of Brooklyn’s Fort Defiance, and a second reprint of The Bar-Tender’s Guide: How to Mix Drinks Or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, first published in 1862, with a new introduction and appendix written by noted cocktail historian, David Wondrich.
The South American Gentleman’s Companion ($29.95)
A follow-up to Baker’s The Gentleman’s Companion, The South American Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book takes the reader on a vicarious journey through South America to explore the drinks, food and people that Baker discovered on his travels. Through Baker’s colorful prose, The South American Gentleman’s Companion provides a glimpse at a globe-trotting gourmand’s life in the mid-20th century, while Frizell’s introduction offers “A Look at the Book” and background on the author himself, garnered from four months following Baker’s footsteps throughout South America and meticulously researching the story of this curious character.
The Bar-Tender’s Guide ($29.95)
This second reprint of Jerry Thomas’ 1862 book – considered the first cocktail manual ever published – is rich with new information that adds depth to the collective understanding of the man behind the book. Sporting a new cover from the $1.50 version of The Bar-Tender’s Guide (the first reprint’s cover was the $2.00 version), this new release provides additional articles in the appendix, reflecting Wondrich’s meticulous research on the life of the man some now consider the patron saint of bartenders. New documents – many of which are reviews of the book when it was first published – “add to the understanding of who Thomas was, what he did and what people thought about that,” explains Wondrich, who also unearthed one central fact about Thomas: his birth date – October 30, 1830.
Both new releases are available for purchase at www.cocktailkingdom.com, and can be shipped nationally and internationally; shipping rates apply.
