Cocktails, anyone?

Other than his slim physique, Colonel Rod Drennon bears little resemblance to William Powell. But this retired Air Force officer does share one interest with Nick Charles, the character played by Powell in the many "Thin Man" movies: cocktails.

Drennon -- "the Colonel" to his friends -- celebrates his proclivity. "I guess I've had a lifelong interest in cocktails, influenced by those movies. In the 1940s, the Thin Man was the height of sophistication," he says.

A native of Mississippi, where his father was a university administrator, the Colonel went to college at the University of Virginia in the 1940s.

There, he lived in a rooming house near campus with a crowd of other male students. Every afternoon around three, the landlady, Betty Booker, would put out lemons, limes and mixers for anyone who wanted a drink (the sun passed over the yardarm early in those days). Using Esquire's Handbook for Hosts, the Colonel began to learn the laws of libation.

In 1949, he joined the Air Force, then returned to Charlottesville, where he finished UVA in 1952. After graduation,  he stayed in the Air Force, something he hadn't intended to do, "but I was surprised that I liked it," he says. He was involved in the Strategic Air Command, and he retired as a Colonel in 1981.

Drennon wasn't interested merely in consuming cordial concoctions. Decades ago, he began collecting, first cocktail shakers, and then, when shaker prices began their ascent into the stratosphere, more affordable,  but related,  items. In particular, he began buying books about cocktails. He'd pick up a tipply tome here and vodka-less volume there,  more as historical documents than as reference works -- although it's true there was a time when he'd commit recipes to memory.

With the arrival of the Internet,  he availed himself of modern technology. He'd see eBay auctioning some bibulous book and circle the date on his calendar. Then he'd bid and wait. Sometimes he'd win the auction. If not, well, there would always be others. There are thousands of books on the topic.

And then one day, he realized his boozy books were rising in price on a wave of popularity generated by cocktails themselves.

How popular were these books? Well, an 1862 book Drennon bought in the late 1990s for $200 -- at the time, he considered the price outrageous -- will today fetch more than $2,500. The title? How to Mix Drinks: The Bon Vivant's Companion, published by Dick and Fitzgerald in New York.

Books about cocktails "have just skyrocketed," says the Colonel. "Too expensive for me. The Germans have become big collectors."

His cocktail library today numbers about 300 books and pamphlets, and its current monetary value can only be imagined.

Suffice it to say that the Colonel now has a complete collection of Old Mister Boston volumes, as well as many books from the 19th century and one book that belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The Colonel is now a fount of liquorous lore. For example, he can tell you that you won't find any recipes involving vodka in the pre-1940s books. It wasn't imported until after World War II. And how many other people would be aware of the sharp spike in cocktail-oriented publications in the early 1930s, when Prohibition was repealed?

When his wife died a few years ago, Drennon started dividing his time between his home in Virginia and Athens, where he stays with his daughter, Cassie Drennon Bryant, and son-in-law David Bryant. The two share his interest in cocktails, especially in the rituals connected with the commingling of intoxicants.

They have an absinthe fountain, with its de rigueur tall glasses and slotted spoons for sugar cubes. And they insist there's a certain drama in the preparation of this drink: they wait in awe for the smoking of the glass as the iced water drips first onto the sugar cubes and then down to the absinthe in the depths.

Luckily for the Colonel and Cassie,  David, too, is a scholar of the vintage cocktail. He likes perusing the books and finding something interesting. He's even wondering if, one day, he might make his own sour mash in a copper still the Colonel bought as a novelty years ago. It would be easy—one of the Colonel’s books can tell him what to do. But, for now, he’ll stick to bottled libations.