GARDEN TO GLASS

Grow Your Drinks from the Ground Up

Mike Wolf, Turner Publishing (NOV 12) Hardcover $26.99 (240pp), 978-1-68442-208-1, COOKING

Using delicious locally grown herbs and botanicals, Mike Wolf’s Garden to Glass crafts unique cocktails from gardened and foraged ingredients.

Wolf, a talented bartender and foraged-ingredient mixologist, brings a wealth of knowledge to the subject of creative cocktail-making. Garden to Glass enjoyably combines complex recipes, seasonal ingredient charts, and informational interviews with foraging and farming professionals. There’s broad information on each topic.

Highlighting star ingredients, including rhubarb, mint, and dandelion, the book works to liven up familiar cocktails. It is visually stunning, and its professional photographs make the drinks extra appealing. The design of each page is decorative and tasteful. Chapters are divided logically, and color-coded pages make for easy retrieval of favorite recipes.

Beginning with basics on gardening, the text covers what type of soil to use, where to plant certain things, and how to build a functional garden for the specific purpose of using grown ingredients for cocktails. The section is informative, whether for building a small herb box or constructing an entire garden to place a variety of vegetables and herbs at your disposal.

The book’s emphasis on waste reduction and making the most of nearby ingredients is insightful. It’s a topic that most bartenders don’t touch upon when crafting cocktails. Related recipes and gardening tips are ambitious, making use of less-known ingredients and forwarding sometimes mountainous gardening plans. Elements of this work will apply to only a sliver of the population and to specialized bar professionals.

Garden to Glass brings foraging behind the bar, opening up a new way to craft cocktails and playing with the seasonality of botanicals. It also forwards basic gardening etiquette in an insightful, inspiring, and educational way.