Book Review: Cocktails: The Bartender’s Bible
Holy vermouth, Batman! This is one big ass book of cocktails!
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
