Food & Wine Cocktails 2008

The new Food & Wine Cocktails 2008 is available now. I look forward to getting this book every year, so I was excited to pick up my copy. I love this book because it represents the latest trends in cocktail culture. The recipes are all hand selected by Editors Kate Krader and Jim Meehan (Can you say PDT and Pegu Club?). These are the hot, new, recipes that grace the best cocktail lists from around the country.

What else makes this book so great?


It features:

• over 150 recipes from some of the coolest bars and restaurants in the country.
• fantastic recipes for my Jose McGregor, and Jeff's Batida Rosa.
  
• incredible photography featuring gorgeous glassware.
• the names and addresses of bars, clubs and restaurants in major cities across the country, making it a great traveler's companion.
• a directory of some of the best liqour stores across the country.
• a "cocktail clinic" section covering the tools and techniques of the professional bartender.
• alcohol free "mocktails."
• recipes for loads of delicious bar food.

Food & Wine Cocktails 2008 should be available at your local bookshop, supermarket or newsstand. If you can't find it locally, it's available at the big online book stores as well.

Food & Wine Cocktails 2008
Edited by Kate Krader, Jim Meehan and Colleen McKinney
Food & Wine, American Express Publishing Corp.
ISBN 1-932624-25-2

A tribute to Jerry Thomas

I was looking for some recipes in the DrinkBoy forums when I came across this in a post that was made back in January of 2002:

"There's so much useful stuff here in this forum, at your site, Robert, and at Martin's site, on 19th-century ingredients, techniques, lore, etc, that one could put it all together and start systematically exploring all the old families of drinks--scaffas, flips, cobblers, daisies, sangarees, fixes, crustas, etc. etc. I've made a few here and there, but as we know every kind of drink has its secrets."

That was over five years ago, and the post was made by excellent drink-writer David Wondrich.
When no one grabbed this idea and ran with it, as it usually happens with these types of things, it was left to Dave. It was his idea after all.

Today, it looks like more than five years of research and writing has paid off.

Wondrich's new book Imbibe! is an excellent guide to classic cocktails as well as an homage to the the first celebrity bartender, Jerry Thomas. The book includes over 100 classic recipes from Jerry Thomas and his contemporaries. Before now, a problem with the oldest cocktail recipes has been one of interpretation. Different recipes used different measures and different terminology. Through exhaustive research, Wondrich has decoded and interpreted these classic recipes for the modern mixologist. All the recipes also include fascinating contextual information that explains their place in history and their cultural significance.

Another interesting aspect of this book is a chapter called "Channeling the Professor - New Drinks From Sixteen of the Top Mixologists of Our Time." This chapter features, you guessed it, a collection of original recipes by some of the best mixologists and bartenders of today. The only rule was that the recipe be inspired by Jerry Thomas or his drinks. The diversity and creativity in these recipes is inspiring.

This book is a must have for mixologists, bartenders, cocktail enthusiasts and history buffs. This book is good in so many ways. It's a great, fun read on it's own, the cocktail recipes are good, and even more interesting for the historical context provided.

I'll include a drink here just to whet your appetite. I started with the original "Brandy, Gin, Santa Cruz, or Whiskey Fix" recipe.

(Use small bar glass)
1 table-spoonful sugar
1/4 lemon
1/2 a wine-glass of water
1 wine-glass of spirits
Fill a tumbler two-thirds full of shaved ice. Stir with a spoon and dress the top with fruit in season.

And interpreted it thusly:

Barbados Fix

1 TSP sugar
juice from 1/4 lemon
1 TBSP water
1 oz Mount Gay Eclipse Rum
1 oz Mount Gay Extra Old Rum
Build over crushed ice and garnish with fresh berries and a small sprig of mint.

The simplicity of this classic recipe really shows off the complex flavors of the Mount Gay rums. The information in Dave Wondrich's book helped me pull it together perfectly.

Go out and get this book today. It's a classic. See if you local bookseller has this book or get them to order it for you. Amazon also has some deals going where you can get this book along with Eric Felten's new book How's your Drink? (more on that one later) for a special price.

Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar.
By David Wondrich.
Published by Perigee Trade
ISBN-13: 978-0399532870

Top 100 Cocktails

A while back I wrote about the "Top Ten Cocktails." That was a post about the top cocktails that people come into the bar and order. Merit had nothing to with the choice, it was all about popularity. What did people order. There wasn't even a classic cocktail on the list. It's been a popular post, and there are lots of people out there searching for top cocktails.

What if I could put together a list of the 100 best cocktails? That would be a monumental task. You'd have to mix expert knowledge of cocktails with a strong constituion, add in plenty of help from the likes of Tony Abou-Ganim, Jared Brown, Dale DeGroff, Jill DeGroff, Ben Dougherty, Lowell Edmunds, Kacy Fitch, Phil Greene, Ted Haigh, Robert Hess, Ryan Magarian, Chris McMillian, Anastasia Miller, The Regans, Audrey Saunders, Murry Stenson and David Wondrich.

Let me see. I'll compile the lists of drinks. Taste and verify all the recipes. (Probably several times.) Write something interesting about each recipe. Heck, once I've gone to all that trouble, I might as well write a book. And make it pocket-sized so people could take it along everywhere...

As all this was running through my mind, I discovered that Robert Hess and
Anastasia Miller had already taken care of it. All of it.


The Museum of The American Cocktail,
Pocket Recipe Guide.

This guide presents 100 classic cocktail recipes every bartender and cocktail lover should know. Small enough to put in your back pocket (3x4 inches), it contains historic notes and variations as well as mixing tips and details to deepen your understanding of the cocktail art. It's a value too. It costs about $10 shipped. I figure that's about the price of 1 cocktail. Cocktails covered include:


Algonquin, Aviation, Bacardi Cocktail, Bellini, Bijou, Corpse Reviver (#2), De la Louisiane, East India Cocktail, Fog Cutter, Jasmine, Jupiter, Last Word, Negroni, Pegu, Pisco Sour, Ramos Gin Fizz, Straits Sling, Vieux Carré, Ward 8, and the Zombie.


That's just a taste, there are 80 more classics in this little book.

It is fantastic, I couldn't believe it. Why had I never heard of it? I put this question to co-author Robert Hess, and he said "we're not really promoting it broadly because we don't really have ENOUGH of them."

They don't have enough of them. They do have some though. So go order one now. They are currently thinking about a larger print run, but get yours now and force their hand. The book is available at Amazon and Mixellany.com, where you can also see the full recipe list.