Books
Drinkhacker’s books category covers everything from the history of drink to cocktail recipe collections and more. Books are rated using the same letter grade scale as our beverage reviews.
Top Book Posts:
The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book
Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol
Japanese Whisky
Cork Dork
Randy Mosher’s been drinking beer for longer than most of us have been alive, and with the second edition of Tasting Beer, he revamps his intense and intensive guide to the way it should be consumed. Note that this is a book for the professional, or at least for the wannabe professional. If you really want…
Bianca Bosker used to be a technology reporter (hey, like me!) for the Huffington Post. Now she’s gone loopy for vino. In her book Cork Dork, Bosker waxes poetic about the year she spent evolving from total wine novice to seasoned pro, primarily through learning how to taste en route to taking the Certified Sommelier Exam.…
We’ve got no shortage of cocktail recipe books around these parts. Cookbooks built around booze — that’s a rarity, and I guess it’s because book publishers just get queasy about the idea of using something other than wine in a recipe for fear of turning grandma off. Kristy Gardner’s 100 recipes in Cooking with Cocktails are…
The title might cue you off that this is a project sponsored by Hennessy, a coffee table book which serves as a richly illustrated historical guide to everything there is to know about this famed Cognac. The book is divided into sections, each built around a topic or a specific luminary that has something to…
How to Drink French Fluently, a book sponsored by St. Germain (aka St-Germain), is gorgeous. The photos interspersed throughout are lush and beautiful, making this a perfect coffee table book. This book is a drinker’s guide, but it has so much more to offer than just cocktail recipes. Of course there are plenty of those from acclaimed bartenders,…
Obsessive Japanese whisky fans are no doubt familiar with the writing of Stefan Van Eycken via his website, Nonjatta. It was one of the first and most comprehensive resources on Japanese whisky available on the internet, and Van Eycken and his intrepid staff diligently scour the island for the rarest of bottles. They have even…
Brad Thomas Parsons is no stranger to bitter herbal liqueurs. He took the craft cocktail scene by storm with his 2011 book Bitters: A Spirited History Of A Classic Cure All, and taught the common drinker how to properly use those little brown bottles behind the bar. Not happy with showing only one side of…
From the scientist that studies rats with hangovers to the bar patron who wonders why anyone would want a raw egg in their drink, there have always been those who question the how’s and why’s of what we imbibe. Over the years, large amounts of research has been compiled to explain why fermented and distilled beverages…
Enduring Mad Men symbology and ’50s/’60s nostalgia are bringing back yet another nifty idea from yesteryear: The rolling bar cart that lets you turn cocktail hour into a moveable feast. The Bar Cart Bible (no author listed, oddly), is designed with simple cocktails in mind. The 350 drinks included can all be made on the go,…
A few years back, Frank Caiafa was hired for a daunting job: Run the lobby bar at the New York Waldorf Astoria, an icon of cocktailing with over a century of history in its walls and bartops. For the last decade Caiafa has been gentling coaxing the place into the new millennium, reviving classic drinks,…