TEN COCKTAILS; the art of convivial drinking (Salt Yard Books, 2015, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1-444-79137-2, $25 US hard covers) is by Alice Lascelles, hard liquor columnist for the The Times in UK. She has also done free lance writing about cocktails for other publications. Her book is part memoir, part history, and anecdotal as she searches Havana for the best Daiquiri, harvests juniper in Umbria, sips Sazeracs in New Orleans, and cruises The Savoy Cocktail Bar. She covers, as well, Gin & Tonic, Martini, Negroni, Punch, Old Fashioned, White Russian, Bloody Mary. As she says, the book is a "distillation of the best stories, people, places and recipes that I've unearthed in ten years of writing about the hard stuff". But along the way she explores what makes a particular cocktail. Preparations have their ingredients listed in metric measurements, but there is no table of equivalents.
Audience and level of use: those interested in a good story and trivia about spirits.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: "If you can just master the ten recipes in this book, you will have acquired almost every technique you need to make any drink that matters".
The downside to this book: except for the recipes, all of the text is in grey print, which makes it hard to read unless the room is well-lit.
The upside to this book: a good idea, covering the basics.
Quality/Price Rating: 88.
Chimo! www.deantudor.com
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