Cocktail Books in the Public Domain

Posted by TraderTiki on January 6th, 2008 — Posted in Bilge

Times can be tough when you’ve got a cocktail you’ve just got to research, but the library is closed, the internet is daft, and no early to mid-century bartenders happen to be hanging out in your home office.  But still, there is some hope.

If you haven’t made use of it yet, Google’s Book service has a decent number of Public Domain titles available for download as PDF files.

Some of the full text titles available are:

Jerry Thomas’ How to Mix Drinks: Or, the Bon-Vivant’s Companion, 1862

William Terrington, Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, 1869

William Schmidt (The Only William), The Flowing Bowl, 1892

These titles, available in full, are in the Public Domain.  The system of which can be pretty convoluted, so that no works past 1923 can be offered, and the author to have  been dead for 70 years, though there are exceptions, etc etc.  Once offered (finally!) though, public domain titles can be a huge boon for research.  Knowledge is power!

Go on and hit up Google’s Book service, and let me know if you find any treasures.  My results came from searching “cocktail”, and then sorting through the 600+ titles found in Full Text. 

Now I must find a place that’ll print and bind these all for me on the cheap.