Drinks and Beverages

Tokyo : Kenkyusha, 1979. First Edition. Paperback. Very good copy in the original title-printed, stiff-card wrappers; edges very slightly dust-dulled and nicked. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. A rare copy. ; 117 pages; Description: v, 117p ; 19cm. Subjects: Japanese tea ceremony. Japan - Social life and customs.

New York: The Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1935. Small stout quarto, 832 pages, with more than 800 illustrations, maps and diagrams, some in full color. Second, edition, revised. At the time of the book's original publication in 1922, The New York Times called it "without a doubt the most comprehensive and authoritative work on the subject that has been published in any language" (New York Times, December 3, 1922). A fine copy in brown cloth, in a near fine dust jacket, and scarce thus.

New York: Tea & Coffee Journal, 1935. Two volumes, quartos, xvi, 559 pages, & viii, 568 pages, thoroughly illustrated. FIRST EDITION. The definitive study of tea. The finest copy we have seen of this monumental work on the history, agriculture, and trade of tea. Slight spotting to top edge of text block on both volumes, as is usually seen (tea stains?), otherwise fine and bright in publisher's green buckram bindings with gilt lettering. In near fine cream and green dust jackets, and very scarce thus.

London: Samson Low, Marston & Company, 1900. Octavo (22.8 x 15 cm.), 474, [2] pages. Illustrated with photographs by the author. All edges gilt. FIRST EDITION. A handsome and profusely illustrated survey of Ceylon and its tea industry, by a member of the Royal Asiatic Society and author of several other titles on the South Asian island nation, now identified as Sri Lanka. In very attractive gilt-stamped, white buckram.

New York: The Scientific American Publishing Company, 1919. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. First edition. Octavo. 232, [1]pp. Contemporary ownership signature on the front pastedown, fine in an attractive, very good or better pictorial dustwrapper with several small nicks and tears. Largely about non-alcoholic drinks, it does contain chapters on wine, mixed-drinks, ciders, and punches. Very scarce in jacket.

Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum, 1980. xxiv; 298 pp. 379 tea wares illustrated in b&w plates and described; 27 items are repeated in color. Text in Japanese; a Foreword and a 23-page catalogue list of 399 items in English; 20 Development Plans listed in the catalogue are not among the plates. The foreword states the exhibition was organized to view the development of Chanoyu in three phases: Karamano Taste under Kitayama to Higashiyama reigns; Wabi Taste under the grand tea masters of Juko to Rikyu; thereafter. Nicely bound in red-orange textured wrappers. The top outside corner is bumped causing light creases to the page corners; light foxing to the top edge. Clean throughout.. Printed Wrapper (softcover). Very Good. 4to.

London: Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane; Printed by Manning and Mason, 1839. Duodecimo (18 x 11 cm.), xv, 200 pages. FIRST EDITION. A guide to the buying, storing and drinking of wine by the journalist and author, Cyrus Redding, 1785-1870. 'The chief thing in the art of drinking wine is to keep within those salutary limits which mark the beneficial from the pernicious ... This is best done by studying self-respect, and the art of saying "no".' A large collection of charming aphorisms, 'wine sayings of my uncle', completes the volume: 'Your stomach is your wine-cellar - keep the stock small and cool ... Wine of the second bottle is a bad storyteller ...' In publisher's gilt-titled and decorated brown, patterned cloth. Small chip to the head of the cloth spine; some light fading to cloth at spine, otherwise near fine. Scarce. [OCLC locates twenty-one copies; Gabler G35820].

[Havana, Cuba: F. Diaz], 1940. Small stapled booklet (9.5 x 6.5 cm.), [32] pages (including price list at center). Issued without the title page, otherwise found in other issues), and without the portraits or biography of the founders. ~ A later, apparently promotional issue of the famous cocktail manual, of which at least nine annual issues are known, all titled Sloppy Joe's Cocktails Manual, and most with the cover title of Sloppy Joe's Bar. While Sloppy Joe's is renowned as a bar, it's role as an important liquor store is less known. Charles Baker, in his South American Gentleman's Companion, recommends Sloppy Joe's (as well as Canal Liquor of Panama City) for those in search of difficult to find ingredients such as Pisco Brandy. ~ The original Havana Sloppy Joe's was the destination for thirsty Americans during Prohibition and after. After nearly fifty years inactive, the bar reopened in its original location in 2013. Publisher's color illustrated wrapper depicts interior of the bar - the same… Read More

New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, Publishers, no. 18, Ann Street, 1885. Octavo (19 x 13 cm.), 312 [2] pages. Publisher's advertisements. Index, really a table of contents. Later printing; originally published by R. Craighead (New York) in 1853. Perhaps the most broadly used work on making hundreds of wines and spirits from a neutral base alcohol, with extensive descriptions of the materials and techniques used to create these dishonest drinks. Cheating aside, the book provides significant information on the various ingredients - oils, essences, herbs, etc. - used as flavorants. ~ Slightest spotting to edges of text block, otherwise clean and bright. In publisher's green pebbled cloth, gilt-titled to the spine. Very near fine. With the ownership stamp of Louis H. Hellert to front and rear endpapers. [OCLC locates numerous copies listing Dick & Fitzgerald as publisher, it remains unclear which of the issues each record refers to; Noling, page 244].

New York: Seagram-Distillers, 1934. Paperback. Very Good. Third Printing, April 1934. 38, [2] p.: illustrations; 23 cm. Stapled illustrated paper cover. Pages of recipes for cocktails face pages with instructions for magic tricks suitable for performing at cocktail hour. Published the year after the end of Prohibition in the United States. Julien J. Proskauer (1893-1958) was an American magician; he was president of the Society of American Magicians in 1935 and 1936. In Very Good Condition: cover slightly rubbed and creased; clean and bright.

Japan: Yokohama Seishi Bunsha, 1895. First Edition. Rare English-language guide to Japanese domestic wares, with 76 fully-illustrated items. Its publication came at a time when Japan was experiencing a dramatic shift from the conservative, isolationist policies of the sh gun-dominated Edo period to the rapid and widespread drive to modernise and engage with the rest of the world that characterizes the Meiji Restoration. This booklet focuses on a traditional domestic interior and features a beautiful double-page plate showing the layout and arrangement of a Japanese period home, showing respective zones for food preparation, cooking and the entertainment of guests. Items specifically illustrated and described include lacquer wares, a charcoal-burning stove, lanterns, wooden buckets and items used in the tea ceremony. A beautiful copy of a scarce work published for the English market. Bibliography: Not in Cordier or Nipponalia.; Rogala Jozef 'A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English', 783.… Read More

A very good edition in good tight binding. Applied with ex Librium label for "G.A. Tonge" to inside cover and inscribed "C.F. Tonge 81" to title page in fountain pen. Minor foxing, some tanning to endpapers. Includes a table of weight and measures. 223 pages. Undated, circa 1869.

(7) leaves letterpress text, 1 leaf half-title (première section) 111 numbered leaves (recte 109) ; plates numbered 10 through 111 are printed on recto only, with plate numbers 40, 63 and 92 omitted according to a printed note at the end of the index, but including an extra plate 35bis) ; 1 leaf half-title (cinquième section annexe), (8) leaves numbered I-XVII (omitting numbers XV/XVI) with text and illustrations on both sides. The plates with numerous printed black and white labels, mounted chromolithographed labels and colourful chromolithographed labels on white glazed paper. Publisher's red cloth, gilt title to spine and front cover. Oblong folio (456 x 320 mm). Extremeties worn, front cover spotted. A fine example showing the wealth of French industrial and agricultural products displayed in black and white facsimiles and color mounted product labels and renderings of trademarks of producers and manufacturers. The most important part is the third section of this catalog showing agricultural… Read More

Due parti in un volume in-8°, cc. 71, [1]. Bell'esemplare, con legatura coeva in pergamena. L'opera del Lando è legata con Symeoni, Comentario alla Tetrarchia di Vinegia, 1548.
Provenienza: al frontespizio, antiche annotazioni manoscritte e nota di possesso; Collezione Maria Paola Moroni Salvatori.
Rarissima terza edizione (la princeps, priva di dati tipografici: Venezia 1548). Paleari Hensselr, 414. B.IN.G., 1080.
Il Commentario del Lando - tra i più geniali poligrafi rinascimentali, traduttore in italiano dell'Utopia di Tommaso Moro (1548) - è inoltre assai celebre in quanto alcune sue pagine "illustrano un ideale itinerario gastronomico per le città d'Italia, con riferimento a cibi e vini di cui l'autore mostra di aver acquisito conoscenze di prima mano" (L'arte della cucina in Italia, a cura di E. Faccioli, Torino 1992, p. 275).
"Questo testo costituisce un catalogo etnico-socio-gastronomico estremamente eterogeneo, inserito in un itinerario quasi iniziatico che si snoda attraverso la… Read More

New Orleans: Diboll & Gelpi, 1931. Published New Orleans, : Diboll & Gelpi, 1931. 15 1/4" x 19 3/4" inches, printed in brown ink in reverse type and images, halftones, with white border. Poster is flat mounted on old corrugated board backing, unframed. Signed in pencil at bottom left margin: "To Karen and Doug, for SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE, Collins Diboll." The poster features numerous vignettes of human activity - eating, drinking, travel, sports, music, dance, entertainment and merrymaking, framed by inner and outer borders of humorous verse: "I used to know a clever toast but now I cannot think it, so fill your glass to anything and damn your souls I'll drink it." "Some are fond of drinking and others of high position, but we're for toleration and down with prohibition." The large central image is a navigational clock, with compass points at center and "Bonum vinum laetificat cor hominis" (Good wine gladdens a person's heart), with… Read More