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
With the verdicts on the previous editions of the Drinkology series split right down the middle, I was curious which way the words would sway in this third Drinkology treatise, devoted to all things involving the almighty grape. Thankfully, it falls under the same category as its beer sibling: an engaging, educational guide about the wine…
Given the recent onslaught of titles dedicating themselves to a single spirit or beverage, the bookshelf of the cocktail connoisseur may find itself with a little less room to spare these days. Thankfully Albert Schmid’s paean The Old Fashioned is compact enough at 110 pages to fit right in, leaving room for those massive wine…
James Teitelbaum has traveled the globe and has, apparently, seen nothing but its bars. This exhaustive book, subtitled “The Traveler’s Guide to Superior Libations,” takes you through more than 40 cities and hundreds of cocktail bars to let you know, should your travels take you to Austin or Anchorage, here’s where you can get a…
Tony Abou-Ganim is a happy guy. In fact he’s so happy that within the first twenty pages of Vodka Distilled, the reader is treated to not one, but four photographs of Mr. Abou-Ganim flashing his pearly whites in various states of pose. And well he should be pleased himself: his 2010 opus The Modern Mixologist…
The title is most certainly not a misnomer, as Henry G. Crowgey’s Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking wastes no time in immersing the reader in his world, beginning with a discussion of Egyptians, Moors and the migration of distillation practices to Europe. Originally published in 1971, this challenging read holds a venerable place…
The “Smart Guide” series of books are designed as an alternative to the “for Dummies” books, and that makes sense to me. Who wants to be a dummy when you can be smart, right? The format, however, is pretty much the same: Lots of sidebars, lots of iconic graphics, lots of entry points. And everything…
Every serious wine drinker needs a big fat book on Bordeaux, the world’s pre-eminent wine region, on his shelf. Oz Clarke’s fat tome on the area and its wines (and, per the subtitle, the vineyards and winemakers) is a decent pick, but it’s not the best I’ve seen. As is frequently the problem with “celebrity”…
We presented Alt Whiskeys previously. Now we have Extreme Brewing. Written by Sam Calagione, owner of the highly-esteemed Dogfish Head Brewery, Extreme Brewing is a treatise on how to make beers that push the boundaries of the beverage. Several dozen recipes are included, ranging from the expected pilsners and lagers to stuff that includes pumpkin,…
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is home to many a splendored thing: actors Clooney, Depp, and Shatner, bluegrass music, horses, Lionel Hampton, Loretta Lynn, and of course bourbon. While these are all claims of which to be Kentucky proud, one of the finer small indulgences signaling spring’s imminent arrival to the Bluegrass is the season’s first…
How enticing do all those artisan cocktails you see these days look, with their organic cinnamon-rhubarb puree and house-made schnozzberry syrup? I frequently enjoy these libations, then regret that I’ll never be able to make them the same way at home. Well, with Katie M. Loeb’s Shake, Stir, Pour: Fresh Homegrown Cocktails, now you can.…