Category Archives: Books

Book Review: Great Whiskeys: 500 of the Best from Around the World

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

great whiskeys 248x300 Book Review: Great Whiskeys: 500 of the Best from Around the WorldThe bad news: Many of the world’s “great whiskeys” are ones you will likely never see in the real world. Pinwhinnie Royale? Dallas Dhu? Braunstein Danish Whiskey?

The good news: If Great Whiskeys is right, there are plenty of whiskeys you can get your hands on, including Early Times, Canadian Mist, and Georgia Moon.

This oddball tome is arranged dictionary-style, one whiskey per page (for the most part), alphabetically: Cutty Sark gets the same ink that Monkey Shoulder does, and they are all lovingly chronicled by editor Charles MacLean in this nearly pocket-sized paperback.

This approach makes for easy skimming, and if it were in a larger format it’d be a credible coffee table book, but as it stands, anyone short of the whiskey expert will be put off by it. Having Usher’s Green Stripe next door to Van Winkle… why, anyone who doesn’t already know his stuff is likely not to “get it.”

That said, the expert won’t learn anything new from the book. Though the pictures are pretty, the writeups don’t give you much else to work with, with most whiskeys barely earning 100 words to describe their distillery’s history, plus a sentence or two of explanation about the product itself.

B- / $12 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated B-, Reviews, Whiskey

Book Review: Matt Kramer on Wine

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

matt kramer on wine Book Review: Matt Kramer on WineI like Matt Kramer and find his writing on wine to be conversational, readable, and generally lots of fun. What I don’t like is books that are anthologies of earlier, already published writing.

This is ultra-common for columnists in all walks of life — Roger Ebert surely makes a fortune repackaging movie reviews every year and selling them to readers who didn’t catch his musings on the latest Spy Kids the first time — so this shouldn’t (and doesn’t) surprise me. And this is actually Kramer’s first such book, which is remarkable if for no other reason than to make you realize the sheer amount the man has had to say about wine over the years.

Kramer is a good wine writer because although he clearly has an exhaustive knowledge of the subject, he speaks for and to the everyman. He loathes froufrou language and openly says that blind tastings suck. He complains that wine merchants (not critics) are the ones that decide what wine is “good” and what isn’t, and comes this close to decrying large-scale competitive wine tastings (like those his employer organizes) as hopeless bullshit. Kramer expounds on the awesome winemaking prowess at a Gallo outpost but will also let you know what he thinks about Lagrein. (It’s a grape, in case you didn’t know.) He laughs directly at many a wine collector, calls the wine-biz movie Mondovino malicious agitprop, and calls out restaurants by name for poor service and bad policies.

In other words, Kramer repeatedly bites the hand that feeds him. And yet, it keeps feeding him.

The good news is that’s our gain, and this collection of essays — while all over the map (literally) — is a fun way to re-experience Kramer’s writing if you didn’t catch it the first time. (And he writes for so many outlets that you couldn’t have seen it all in print originally.)

The book ends with a curiosity: A multi-thousand word profile of Angelo Gaja that was rejected by The New Yorker but which was paid for — $15,000 — in full. I didn’t get through it all, but that’s OK: Kramer is actually best in small doses, as his quippy writing style works well in the short form, where he can drop a gag and run out the room before his host realizes he’s been had. In some cases, that means you and me.

B+ / $12 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated B+, Reviews, Wine

Book Review: Bourbon: The Evolution of Kentucky Whiskey

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

bourbon evolution of kentucky whiskey Book Review: Bourbon: The Evolution of Kentucky WhiskeyThose expecting a sun-dappled romp through the state of Kentucky in Sam K. Cecil’s Bourbon: The Evolution of Kentucky Whiskey we be in for a bit of a surprise. Cecil, who got started in the Bourbon industry four years after Prohibition ended in 1933, has written a tome which dutifully outlines how Bourbon is made, how Prohibition impacted its production, and how the industry never really recovered thereafter, losing out to international brands and distilleries that had long since fallen into disrepair or were simply torn down.

But that is just the setting of the scene. Cecil is actually much more concerned not with the how of whiskeymaking but with the where and the who. After 80-some pages of background, Cecil spends the next 200 digesting just about every distillery that has every existed in the state of Kentucky, where it was located, what it was (variously) called, and which hands of ownership it passed through. Some distilleries are given just a paragraph, while more hallowed facilities, like E.H. Taylor (now known as Buffalo Trace), get several pages.

Faithfully indexed, chances are if you’re looking for information about your favorite tipple you’ll find it covered in Cecil’s book – although the book is focused on distilleries instead of brands. It’s an important distinction: If you want to find, say, Bulleitt, Black Maple Hill, or Noah’s Mill, you won’t find them covered in these pages.

If you’re looking for a reference book of Bourbons – especially old and/or defunct ones – this is a good place to start, though the writing is a bit dry and its simple utility, in the modern era, is muted.

B / $15 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Bourbon, Rated B, Whiskey

Book Review: The Punch Bowl: 75 Recipes Spanning Four Centuries of Wanton Revelry

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Christopher Null| 3 Comments

the punch bowl 221x300 Book Review: The Punch Bowl: 75 Recipes Spanning Four Centuries of Wanton RevelryI am a relative recent, but confirmed, convert to the serving of punch in a party setting. It is always a crowd-pleaser, there are plenty of tasty things you can do with it, and it makes bar service infinitely easier. Serving 20 or 30 at a time just can’t be accomplished any other way.

The trouble with punch is finding a good recipe. Punch hasn’t been fashionable for, oh, 60 or so years, and many punch recipes you’ll find today tend to involve gills of this and drams of that… the this and that not normally being something you’d actually want to consume.

Praise be then to Dan Searing, who has dredged up 75 punch recipes – both classic and modern – and compiled them into one lively, full-color, high-quality book, The Punch Bowl. Searing seems to love punch more than any normal man should, offering a detailed history of the flowing bowl (primarily a sailor’s drink before it entered high society) before launching into a well-curated selection of punches based on a variety of liquids – Champagne, rum, brandy, whiskey, even milk and tea. Who knew?

The real test of any cookbook is whether you’d actually want to create the recipes it offers, and sure enough Searing offers a surfeit of punches that will have to do battle when it comes time to pick a drink for my annual holiday party. While my tastes are running toward some of the tiki-themed punches on offer here, now I know what a couple of green tea bags can do to these wonderful concoctions.

A / $10 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated A, Reviews

Book Review: Grands Crus Classes: The Great Wines of Bordeaux

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

grands crus classes Book Review: Grands Crus Classes: The Great Wines of BordeauxThis mammoth tome — nearly 400 pages and over six pounds in heft — is a tome in two parts. The two parts celebrate the companionship of food and wine: Each section offers information about a Grand Cru Bordeaux winery, its production, grape varietals, and a bit of history, plus copious, gorgeous photographs of that winery — generally one page of text and one page (or more) of pictures.

Then you flip the page and get… a recipe, usually from some megastar chef like Thomas Keller, Ferran Adria, or Joel Robuchon. Each recipe is paired with the wine it follows.

Now this is a drinking website and not a cooking site, so it’s not really my place to judge this tome as a cookbook. That said, I do cook a lot, and I can’t see myself putting many of these recipes into practice in the kitchen. As inspiration, though, they sure do look good.

As for the wines, remember these are, as the title suggests, Grand Cru wineries only. Only left-bank Medoc and Sauternes/Barsac wines are covered here, so you won’t get anything from the rest of Bordeaux, including wines like Petrus. That said, it is a comprehensive look at all of the Grands Crus, including more dessert wines than you might have realized existed. The information provided about each chateau is usually interesting, even if the writing is as dry as the font is small. The pictures tend to tell the stories far better.

Better for the coffee table than the library or the kitchen, Grands Crus Classes is an interesting experiment that, unfortunately, didn’t really pay off for my reading style.

B- / $47 / [BUY IT HERE]

 

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Posted in Bar Food, Books, Rated B-, Reviews, Wine

Book Review: The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

perfect drink for every occasion 211x300 Book Review: The Perfect Drink for Every OccasionBartending books come in two varieties: Mammoth reference tomes and slim, whimsical dispatches that are fit mainly for browsing. The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion (updated from its original 2003 edition) is squarely in the latter camp, though that’s not a slight: It’s actually a pretty fun little book that, if nothing else, can help break a stalemate when cocktail hour arrives and you don’t know what to make.

The conceit is that each recipe is keyed to an event – something major in life (getting married, getting divorced) or minor (leap year, being in Philadelphia). Some of the drinks are fanciful (5 oz. of absinthe on the rocks) and some are serious (Clover Club). Some are classics and some are newer inventions. Highballs, shots, and even pints of beer are represented here.

151 drinks in total fill the 239 pages of the book, which makes it easy to flip through but hard to actually read. That said, I found it mostly fun, and, more importantly, with a good selection of stuff I’d actually want to drink. The few typos concern me a bit – a saketini should not have 2 ounces of sake and 5 ounces of vodka in it – but hopefully the reader will figure out the proportions before he has to be scraped up off the floor. (Although there’s a drink for that.)

All in all, this book feels like a great gift to give as a stocking stuffer or to, say, someone who’s about to become a dad. And yes, there’s a drink for that, too.

B / $10 / [BUY IT HERE]

 

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Posted in Books, Rated B, Reviews

Book Review: The Quotable Drunkard

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

quotable drunkard 194x300 Book Review: The Quotable DrunkardFor some reason, I get a kick out of reading quotations, and I expect I’m not alone, explaining why so many books of quotes are on the market. Steven Kates turns to a natural topic – the bottle – for this themed book of musings, and for the most part it’s a solid one.

Split into chapters of natural topics, Kates takes on beer, wine, alcoholism, hangovers, and more, with special sections devoted to quotes about drinking from various books and movies. Historical figures are also amply represented in the text, as is the Bible.

Now maybe I’m old fashioned, but I do believe that no book about drinking, however frivolous, should ever quote Dharma & Greg. And it definitely should not do so three times. Sure enough, these quotes aren’t even remotely amusing, and if Kates’ book ever suffers, it’s in his editing: As if he simply punted and did a few IMDB searches for “rum,” “wine,” and “drinking” and just copy-and-pasted everything that turned up into his manuscript.

But hey, compiling quotes probably isn’t as easy as it sounds, and by and large Kates does good work here. You may even learn a thing or two courtesy of the drinking fun facts interspersed throughout the tome.

Until next time, remember, “I used to think drinking was the only way to be happy. Now I know there is no way to be happy.” (Laura Kightlinger)

A- / $10 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated A-, Reviews

Book Review: Exploring Wine

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

exploring wine 237x300 Book Review: Exploring WineEvery wine drinker needs one (and only one) book like this: A magnificent, encyclopedia-sized tome that tells you everything you can possibly want to know about wine in a single book. Or tries to, anyway.

As such a subject is basically unmasterable, the goal with a mega-book like this is to be as comprehensive as possible while leaving out the obtuse junk that no one cares about.

My current bookshelf pick, Andre Domine’s Wine, does a good job of this, highlighting every region you could care to investigate, mapping them intricately, and highlighting the best producers in each.

Now comes Exploring Wine‘s third edition, from Steven Kolpan, Brian H. Smith, and Michael A. Weiss, in conjunction with the Culinary Institute of America. It’s a 791-page monster, and yet it feels slight. Various regions and wine styles get a mere paragraph or two in Exploring Wine. Even big areas, like the French Languedoc region, get less than two pages total, not much more than California’s Livermore Valley is granted. It’s strange and inconsistent, to say the least.

Exploring Wine doesn’t dwell much on specific wines or producers, aiming instead for more of a global look at the wine trade (even China and India get some ink), how the wine business works, and, for about a third of the book, discussing how wine pairs with food (not surprising considering the CIA’s involvement in the book). Interesting stuff if you’re trying to open a restaurant and train your teenage staff on how to sell wine, I guess, but it’s not right for a consumer. The front of the book is just too vague, and the back end is too industry-specific. Sorry, guys, I’m sticking with Wine for now.

C / $39 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated C, Reviews, Wine

Book Review: Bettane & Desseauve’s Guide to the Wines of France

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

Bettane Desseauves Guide to the Wines of France 155x300 Book Review: Bettane & Desseauves Guide to the Wines of FranceFrance is probably the most complicated wine region in the world, full of viticultural areas that not only are most consumers unable to locate on a map, but which they can’t even pronounce.

The thick and unwieldy Bettane & Desseauve’s Guide to the Wines of France will be of little help to most drinkers, an 831-page behemoth that’s as difficult to hold open as it is to navigate. Almost entirely comprised of ratings of wines from hundreds of different chateaux, the book is indeed a guide to the very wines of France and is not a hand-holding introduction to what French wine is all about.

That’s fine, but organization represents a long-term challenge for this book, as finding a producer will test the patience of even experience wine drinkers. Wineries are split up by geography, and Bordeaux, say, is divided into its various sub-regions. If you’re looking for a specific producer (which is really the only reason anyone would open this tome) the goose chase begins in earnest. Hope you understand the peculiarities of French proper names: Chateau La Tour Figeac, for example, can be found alphabetized after Etablissements Thunevin (both are under “T”), and only then will you find them if you know they are Right Bank Bordeaux.

This is, by all accounts, the “correct” way to alphabetize a winery, but without good signposting it won’t mean much to most. The index is more help, dispensing with all the preamble and alphabetizing by whomever’s last name is on the label, but only if don’t make the mistake of looking at the second index, which is again organized by appellation and sub-appellation, basically just repeating the organization of the main text.

Another challenge comes int he form of the book’s odd design: 11 inches tall and just 5 5/8 inches wide, it is the shape of a pocket book but, at 2 inches thick, will not fit in any pocket you have. The odd shape makes it hard to hold open for long and impossible to lay down without using something heavy to keep it from closing on you. Sticklers will also find that the binding breaks within minutes of first opening it.

All in all Bettane and Desseauve are comprehensive in cataloging the world of French wine (though, as with many of these books, their ratings hover around a very narrowly-defined area), but better books about the wines of France can be found.

B- / $26 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated B-, Reviews, Wine

Book Review: Old Man Drinks: Recipes, Advice, and Barstool Wisdom

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Christopher Null| 1 Comment

old man drinks 192x300 Book Review: Old Man Drinks: Recipes, Advice, and Barstool WisdomThis slim little novelty book from Robert Schnakenberg is as harmless as it is cute: A collection of “Old Man Drink” cocktail recipes, paired with photos of old codgers sitting on barstools and quotes condensing their wisdom into various aphorisms.

Many of the drinks are indeed nothing that anyone under the age of 55 would likely consider ordering – Rolls-Royce, Sloe Gin Fizz – but the vast majority are simply classic cocktails like the Bloody Mary, Manhattan, and Sazerac, stuff that is suitable for all ages. Only a couple of cocktails, like the Bellini, seem not to fit the book’s title at all. I’ve never seen a man drink a Bellini in any seriousness, much less a retiree.

The old man quotes are about what you’d expect, not so much advice but more angry snaps of the complaint variety, heavily focused on the evils of politics, the evils of working for The Man, and – especially – the evils of women. Old Man has to drink, it seems, because Old Lady drove him to it.

The funny thing is that in the black and white photos that adorn the interior of the book – a less attractive collection of pictures I’ve never seen – it’s pretty clear that real Old Men don’t drink Rob Roys and Pisco Sours very often. Seen here, posing with their favorite tipples, these crusty characters invariably seem to head for the truly Old Man standbys of beer and whiskey, straight. I imagine Schnakenberg’s time spent with these dudes to collect his quotes and photographs was quote the experience. Now get off their damn lawn.

B- / $10 / [BUY IT HERE]

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Posted in Books, Rated B-, Reviews