The word on cocktails
Want to add some boozy titles to your holiday reading list or pick one up for a friend for the holidays? Here are a few titles that offer something for everyone, whether it’s a casual cocktail connoisseur, hardcore historian or a back-to-nature bartender.
“Drinks: A User’s Guide” (Adam Mcdowell, Tarcher Perigee) is the perfect guide for those who want to feel confident and unintimidated when surrounded by booze snobs, without becoming one themselves.
Mcdowell offers advice on topics as basic as the best seat to take at a bar when meeting a date (the corner, by the way), and as esoteric as the tannin content of various wines. Yet he manages to touch on the basics of how to best enjoy beer, wine, sake, spirits and cocktails, either out or at home, in relatively short order, by focusing the simple practicalities that will improve your drinking experience.
One need only read the title of “Imbibe: From Absinthe Cocktails to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar,” (David Wondrich, Perigee) to know this will not be a succinct look at anything. But that’s OK.
The author’s attempt to document the life and legacy of pioneering 19th century American bartender Jerry Thomas is comprehensive because the man’s legacy is so far-reaching.
The book provides a brief history of Thomas’ life and includes drink recipes he left behind. A James Beard Award winner, this is the perfect gift for the cocktail nerd in your life — the type who wants to know if a glassware choice is authentic to a pre-prohibition recipe.
For many, there’s no greater satisfaction than cooking with ingredients you’ve picked. “The Wildcrafted Cocktail”
(Ellen Zachos, Storey), takes that philosophy into the home bar. The target audience of this book is not backyard gardeners, but foragers — those who enjoy searching for edible treats growing wild.
The author offers tips and recipes for transforming wild berries, herbs, flowers and even weeds into syrups, sodas, bitters, infusions and garnishes to use in cocktail preparation.