John F. Driscoll, Chicago, 1933. Paperback. Very Good. John Driscoll, a bartender with a self-proclaimed 20-plus years experience in New York, Mexico, and Monte Carlo, presents here some 400 recipes and instructions for cocktails and homebrewed wines. Published in the very opportune year Prohibition was repealed, The Home Bartender (1933) offers a dizzying number of cocktails (16 egg nog variations!) as well as a few non-alcoholic options for full-service beverage operations, either at home or in a professional setting. Though many familiar classics have a presence in these 60-odd pages, it is, of course, the more esoteric and obscure drinks which call our attention. Koumiss—fermented mare’s milk hailing from Central Asia— for example, is a surprise inclusion, casually situated between recipes for sloe gin and noyeau, almond creme liqueur. A rather shocking cure for intoxication—baking soda in water followed by self-induced vomiting with the fingers of the right hand, specifically, then by lemon juice and salt, black coffee, and a “whiff of ammonia to clear the head, if desired”—appears between the much more charming Pleasant Girl and Lillian Wagner cocktails. Very Good, overall. Lightly shelfworn with faint blemishes. Staplebound paperback (4.25” x 6”). Scarce.
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