Book Review: Cocktails: The Bartender’s Bible
Book Review: Cocktails: The Bartender’s Bible
Simon Difford, with his 11th edition of this monstrous tome from diffordsguide, packs over 3000 cocktail recipes into some 500 pages of material. Hardbound, with a glossy cover, it feels like a textbook, and it practically is.
Now there are many cocktail books that can claim quantity like this, but how many of them are full color on every page? Each recipe featuring a (very small) photo of the finished drink? None that I’ve seen, and that thumbnail picture is what makes this book a keeper over many others of its ilk. Just like when you’re cooking dinner on the stove, having a picture to know what you’re aiming for can make all the difference.
Difford’s collection is exhaustive, even though some of the recipes feature slightly odd ingredient lists. (I’ve never had a Casino with orange juice in it, nor a Sazerac with Angostura bitters… not that those are wrong, per se.) I love how he offers variants for most of the drinks (“If you like this, try this…”), gives a quick sentence about how each drink should taste, and provides historical information on some of the more classic concoctions. The text is tiny throughout, though, so bring your reading glasses.
A- / $34 / [BUY IT AT AMAZON]
Cocktails: The Bartender's Bible
$34
