EUVS may sound like an odd acronym but it stands for Exposition Universelle des Vins & Spiritueux. Aside from a wonderful layout the site boasts a catalog of over 500 spirits, details of bar tending tools, techniques and most importantly a digital library of scanned bar books that date back to the 1700’s. Among them are several of the most well known and sought after bar guides such as the Flowing Bowl, Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual, and the Old Master himself Jerry Thomas’ 1862 classic How to Mix Drinks.
Many of these books can be had in paperback or in reprints for anywhere from $10 to 30 but here you can find high rez digital scans of the original prints.
There are at present just under 30 volumes in the collection and all of them are from before the era of copyright so they are easily able to be shared in this fashion.
The pages are crystal clear and are accurate even down to the pencil marks made on various pages in the scanned copy. Navigation is a snap and has some of the feel of flipping an actual book.
I’ve not attempted to read these on an E-reader but they can all be downloaded in PDF format for ease of portability.
Best of all the entire site is funded via an actual museum situated on an island off the coast of france and founded by Paul Ricard of the Pernod-Ricard company. This means there isn’t an advertisement to be had on the entire site and it looks beautiful.
Shaker and Spreadsheet 