Another great find at the Mechanic’s Institute: The Gentleman’s Companion, Vol II: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker & Glass. Written by Charles H. Baker, Jr., who apparently traveled the world on Town and Country’s dime in pursuit of interesting recipes for food and drink.

A highlight, chosen at random:

THE AMER PICON “POUFFLE” FIZZ:  Something Native Originally to Paris & Encountered at the Cafe du Dome, where in Spite of the American Inundation of Pseudo-Bohemians Is Still a Moderately Consistent Rondezvous for other Americans Over There Who Do Things with Their Brains & Hands

Simply turn 1 to 1 1/2 jiggers  of Amer Picon into a shaker, add lots of cracked ice, the white of 1 fresh egg, 1/2 jigger of grenadine, shake, then turn everything into a big thin goblet and fill up with club soda to suit taste. This is a fine stomachic, and inspires interest in foods.

There are plenty of other drinks that sound delightful, including:

THE MARTINIQUE CRUSTA, which We Found Waiting for Us in Fort de France on the Occasion of Our First Trip through the West Indes, in 1929

and

THE RANGOON STAR RUBY, a Wonderful & Stimulating Cocktail from Lower-Burmah

Nearly every page includes some enticing concoction, no doubt sipped by idle gentlemen in dress whites on some balcony overlooking the sea, or on some far-off colonial cricket-field. For the temperate, there are even some marvellous-sounding nonalocoholic drinks, including two recipes for homemade, stone-bottled ginger beer. Why stone-bottled, you ask? Baker explains,

Of course this ginger beer may be bottled in glass, but that too is like modernizing any mellowed and ancient custom, or like a charming girl in sport slacks who wears high heels; for then certain of the charm flies out the window, through needless inconsistency.

So there.