Barflies and Cocktails First Edition - Harry Mcelhone - Bauman Rare Books

Barflies and Cocktails

Harry McElhone | Wynn HOLCOMB

Item#: 113369 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Barflies and Cocktails

Barflies and Cocktails

"AMERICAN BEAUTY, BRANDY SHAMPARELLE, CECIL PICK-ME-UP, JOURNALIST COCKTAIL, SCOFFLAW": FIRST EDITION OF MCELHONE AND HOLCOMB'S BARFLIES AND COCKTAILS, 1927

MCELHONE, Harry and HOLCOMB, Wynn. Barflies and Cocktails. Paris: Lecram Press, 1927. Small octavo, original half orange cloth, original printed paper boards.

First edition of this Prohibition-era cocktail guide by Harry McElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris (frequented by Americans including Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, and Humphrey Bogart), wonderfully illustrated by Holcomb Wynn and featuring 300 recipes for cocktails, in original pictorial boards.

"Barflies and Cocktails, written by Harry McElhone (the Harry of the famous Harry's New York Bar in Paris) and extensively illustrated in a cartoonish style by Wynn Holcomb, conveys a whiskey-addled sense of zany humor that seems tied to the Roaring Twenties, when the book was first published. The running conceit of the book has to do with the fictional association of International Bar Flies, the rules of which include the admonition that, 'Those seeing cerise cats with purple ears should keep it to themselves'" (New York Times). Today, McElhone is known as the inventor of the Boulevardier (Negroni meets Manhattan), the recipe for which is included in the Epilogue. A few marginal "X" annotations.

Occasional staining to text, rear inner paper hinge starting, light wear and soiling to binding. An extremely good copy, rare in any condition.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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