"ES MUY FUNDAMENTAL EL SABER DE GUSTOS, EL CONOCIMIENTO DE PERSONAS": FIRST EDITION OF COCKTAILS, INSCRIBED BY RENOWNED SPANISH BARMAN PEDRO CHICOTE

CHICOTE, Pedro. Cocktails. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1928. Octavo, original red cloth. $950.

First edition of this uncommon cocktail recipe book and guide for bartenders, inscribed by the author, renowned Spanish barman Pedro Chicote: "A mi distinguido cliente General Marsengo con mucho respeto y admiracion de Pedro Chicote Madrid 27-6-28"—presumably Maurizio Marsengo, Italian military attaché to Madrid and Lisbon, recipient of the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Mérito Militar, and later Minister Plenipotentiary of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Argentina.

The celebrity bartender Chicote started his career as a barman at the Hotel Ritz in Madrid, then moved to the Savoy, and then in 1931 founded his own establishment, Bar Chicote, which in the 1940s became known as Museo (Museum) Chicote. The first cocktail bar in Madrid, this glamorous establishment was frequented by a wide variety of international celebrities, including Prince Rainier of Monaco, Princess Soraya of Iran, Ernest Hemingway, José Ortega y Gasset, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Sophia Loren, and Real Madrid soccer legends Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás. Chicote was also the founder of the A.B.E., the Asociación de Barmans Españoles. Cocktails preceded Chicote's Cocktails Mundiales and while portions of the contents of the two works overlap, they are not identical—the lists of drink recipes are not the same, and Cocktails includes items not found in the later work, including a page of photographs of "S.M. el Rey [Alfonso XIII] felicitando a Pedro Chicote con motivo del exito de su primer libro El bar americano en Espana," a set of illustrations of different types of glasses and bar utensils, and Chicote's "Impresiones de mi viaje a Nueva York." Text in Spanish; six pages of advertisements for wine, champagne, whiskey, cognac and sherry at the back of the volume.

Inner hinges reinforced, cloth spotted. An excellent copy.