The Ideal Bartender

2015 Reprint of 1917 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Tom Bullock was the longtime bartender at the St. Louis Country Club and the first African-American bartender to publish a cocktail manual. His book is additionally valuable as a historical document, since it came out not long before the Volstead Act came crashing down on drinkers’ heads. According to a New York Times Review The recipes capture a flavor of pre-Prohibition American drinking culture and trends, a style that is replicated in many cocktail bars around the world even today. Among those recipes are the Gillette Cocktail, believed by some to be an early print appearance of the gimlet, and the Golfer’s Delight, a drink that used Bevo, the near beer that Anheuser-Busch introduced at the time as a bulwark against the coming ban on liquor. Bullock’s fateful julep recipe is in there, too, along with a word of gentlemanly caution: Be careful and not bruise the mint. Contains 173 cocktail recipes. [New York Times: FEB. 17, 2015