The story of Mud Puddle Books is the story of Greg Boehm. Greg was born , a poor black child into a family that published Salvatore Calabrese’s cocktail books under the Sterling Publishing label. “Each year I would go to London a few times and inevitably spend my evening sitting at his bar when he was at the Library Bar at the Lanesborough Hotel,” said Greg. “As my interest in cocktails grew, I started collecting old cocktail books. This was about 10 years ago.” Sitting across Salvatore Calabrese’s bar and learning the art and reward of fine drink would light a passion in the most stolid and steadfast of us, and, in Greg’s case, his passion took the form of locating, and collecting, one-by-one, the lost spirits and recipes for which he’d begun his exploration at the appropriately named Library Bar.

“The internet helped in tracking down these ingredients and recipes could be found for the ingredients that were not commercially available. My book collection grew steadily….When I finally gathered all the books in one place there were close to 2,000 books from 1940 and earlier. Now my collecting madness includes innumerable bottles of long discontinued booze.”

Then, something changed. Suddenly, Creme de Violette, Pimento Dram, and other long-forgotten cocktail ingredients, so many of which are required to faithfully reproduce the recipes in the vintage tomes Greg had assembled, began appearing on the market. And, likewise, a burgeoning community of cocktail enthusiasts were publishing, and promoting, recipes for lost liqueurs and spirits on the Internet and in mainstream magazines such as Imbibe. And Greg was sitting on an accidental Alexandrian Library of the Cocktailian Arts. “In other words, the books were now a living history and part of the cocktail renaissance that was in full force. And, once I decided to republish the books, they had to be as accurate as possible.”

But, how would the purists, the collectors who had been using out-of-print cocktail books as a commodity for trading as collector’s items, and the general reader receive these reprints? Fortunately, because these are not mere “reprints” but faithful reproductions of the original works, down to the paper’s weight, the book’s binding, the typeface, the embossing and imprints, and the dimensions, they have been widely welcomed. “The cocktailian community has been incredibly supportive of Mud Puddle’s cocktail book publishing program,” confides Greg with a mixture of pride and relief. “It has been incredible to see bartenders across the world re-creating old drinks and also creating new ones based on the old recipes form the books [and,] for the most part, cocktail book collectors are happy with the reproductions…luckily for [them], the reproductions seem to actually have increased the value of the originals. Perhaps more people are aware of the old books now.”

And so, from “Barflies and Cocktails,” a book in which Greg had to find, “…a printer that was wiling to go the extra step [of using] 3-piece binding that is never used today,” to “The Modern Bartender’s Guide” which has the original “blind stamping” on the front and back Greg has brought us Mud Puddle Books’ Cocktail Kingdom. The original books to publish were selected through the best possible means imaginable, “Bartender and fellow cocktail book collector from London, Jeff Masson and I sat down with David Wondrich and Ted Haigh at the French 75 bar in New Orleans during Tales of the Cocktail to discuss what books to publish next.” This organic process of selecting and reproducing classic and vintage books has been a boon for cocktail enthusiasts interested in the first recorded recipe for Parfait Amour as well as the casual reader wanting to enter into the world of better drinking with books such as Robert Hess’ “Essential Bartender’s Guide.”

In fact, so flexible and open-ended are Greg’s pursuits for the next cocktail classic reproduction that he relates how his latest project came about in this way:

“Mud Puddle is a small company and we are all very hands-on. It would be difficult to be as flexible as we are if the company was larger. For example, while in the Mixoloseum chat room last week it was suggested that we should republish “The South American Gentleman’s Companion” by Charles Baker. And, we started working on the project the very next day. Sterling Publishing was a much larger company and while we published cocktail books, they were a tiny part of the business. “

Greg freely confesses that it’s “by some miracle” that the Cocktail kingdom endeavor has stayed afloat. I highly recommend any of the beautiful reproductions but especially Embury’s “Fine Art of Mixing Drinks“, Jerry Thomas’ classic “The Bartender’s Guide: How to Mix Drinks: A Bon Vivant’s Companion” and Charlie Paul’s “Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks“. Between these three vintage books you will find yourself immersed in the language and history of the American Cocktail and can appreciate its history, colorful contribution to culture, and keep yourself mired in long lost flavors for as long as your heart, and your curious mind, desire. Just be sure to keep the miracle alive and start building your collection today. You won’t be sorry.

This is a reposting of my work over at The Mixoloseum’s Blog, please take a look over there and what other great work you can find.

If you don’t know by now, and really, you should, there’s a weekly online drinking event called Thursday Drink Night hosted by the indomitably-spirited Rick of kaiserpenguin.com at the Mixoloseum Bar. Now, normally, this is your run-of-the-mill affair whereby bartenders, enthusiasts, and mixologists get together and mix drinks that are submitted on-the-fly and put them through the gauntlet of criticism of the sort not seen since Baby Geniuses. Which is to say, unlike the movie, it’s an absolute blast.

So, “what’s special about this one?” you don’t ask? Well, firstly, it’s the first sponsored Thursday Drink Night the Mixoloseum will be having. The good folks at Leblon have seen fit to sponsor the event, take questions, and, hopefully, use the recipes we develop to solve the global financial crisis, reduce poverty by 45.71% and solve the looming energy crisis by using our drinks to catalyze cold fusion. As you can see, they got a hell of a deal.

Secondly, after much whining on my part about being stuck in Vegas sans my home bar, they’ve taken pity on me and kindly set myself and Rumdood (who will be joining me after a drive from L.A.)¹ up at a location on the Las Vegas strip where we, our laptops, and hopefully a small crowd of people will take part in TDN live and on-site at Trader Vic’s in Planet Hollywood. We will be there featuring Leblon in the drinks submitted by the online bar crowd, requesting the crowd or the bartenders submit drinks for TDN, or generally running up legendary bar tabs and ensuring the resulting mayhem and awesomeness doesn’t lead to a destroyed laptop or two.

So, if you’re in Vegas, come by and visit. We’ll be there around 6:00pm and would love to see you and, if the bartenders aren’t already sick to tears of us and giving those smoldering withering stares only barkeeps can, we may even buy you a drink. If you’re not in Vegas, join us at the online bar, pull up a seat, mix a drink with Leblon cachaca, and enjoy the show. It will prove to be a fun, informative (we’ll have Gerry and Steven from leblon on-hand to field questions and provide the edutainment of the evening), and lively time.

1. and yes, Matt, I will continue in my persistence that you live in L.A. [↩]