Here are 100 books that And a Bottle of Rum fans have personally recommended if you like
And a Bottle of Rum.
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I’ve been writing about cocktails and spirits for over a decade, often in collaboration with my mixologist husband and co-author, John McCarthy. Our mission is to create delicious, practical cocktail recipes for the home bartender. There are a number of cocktail books out there, but they usually fall into two camps. Novelty books, which are often silly and untested. Or books written by professionals, for professionals, impractical if you don’t have a centrifuge, dehydrator, and 300-odd liqueurs in your home bar. What about the vast middle ground–people who love cocktails, want to make them at home, and learn something while they’re sipping? We believe in finding the best books for them.
Without a doubt, David Wondrich is the preeminent cocktail historian of our time. If that doesn’t sound like a real thing…well, just start reading his work.
No one else has his mastery of our drinking history or a gift for communicating all its twists and turns. Every book he’s written is a great read, but this book is the best jumping-off point, following the story of mid-19th-century bartender Jerry Thomas with colorful tales and excellent recipes.
The newly updated edition of David Wondrich’s definitive guide to classic American cocktails.
Cocktail writer and historian David Wondrich presents the colorful, little-known history of classic American drinks--and the ultimate mixologist's guide--in this engaging homage to Jerry Thomas, father of the American bar.
Wondrich reveals never-before-published details and stories about this larger-than-life nineteenth-century figure, along with definitive recipes for more than 100 punches, cocktails, sours, fizzes, toddies, slings, and other essential drinks, along with detailed historical and mixological notes.
The first edition, published in 2007, won a James Beard Award. Now updated with newly discovered recipes and historical information, this…
Nightclubs and country clubs figured in my father’s business distributing snack foods in post-WWII “Steel City,” Pittsburgh, where I was served “Shirley Temple” cocktails in martini glasses alongside my parents’ Manhattans. (To my five- and six-year-old eye, the trophy was the maraschino cherry.) Decades later, teaching American literature in the university, my interest deepened in Jack London’s writing, and my book on him demanded close attention to the history of US cocktails and other drinks. London’s memoir, John Barleycorn, frankly details his drinking and eventual capture by alcohol. As a scholar-researcher, I was “captured” by the backstory of US cocktail culture.
Order a Martini (straight up, or with ice chiming against the glass), then settle with this charming book and the “quintessential cocktail” that merits its own chapter in the imbiber’s US history tour. Grimes wears learning lightly while pointing out the cultural vagaries over four centuries of pleasurable distillation, brewing, and fermentation. Who knew the American Revolution was first fomented in 1700s village taverns? Or that the familiar Gilded Age “Bronx” (named by the Waldorf-Astoria’s master mixologist) was the very first cocktail to use fruit juice?
Author Grimes chides the 1960s Yuppies (a.k.a. young urban professionals) for purist insistence on “imported beer” and “the rarest of single-malt Scotches,” but concludes the country and the cocktail survived and are all the better for it. He gets no argument from me!
The cocktail is as old as the nation that invented it, yet until this entertaining and authoritative account, its story had never been fully told. William Grimes traces the evolution of American drink from the anything-goes concoctions of the Colonial era to the frozen margarita, spiking his meticulously researched narrative with arresting details, odd facts, and colorful figures.
The book includes about one hundred recipes--half of them new for this edition--for both classics and innovations.
Nightclubs and country clubs figured in my father’s business distributing snack foods in post-WWII “Steel City,” Pittsburgh, where I was served “Shirley Temple” cocktails in martini glasses alongside my parents’ Manhattans. (To my five- and six-year-old eye, the trophy was the maraschino cherry.) Decades later, teaching American literature in the university, my interest deepened in Jack London’s writing, and my book on him demanded close attention to the history of US cocktails and other drinks. London’s memoir, John Barleycorn, frankly details his drinking and eventual capture by alcohol. As a scholar-researcher, I was “captured” by the backstory of US cocktail culture.
Whiskeys rule, but the modern bar dare not lack a battery of bitters that extend beyond from the familiar Angostura and Peychaud’s. By the “dash,” cocktails demand bitters which, all too often, appear to be an afterthought. (Yet my New Orleans-born Sazerac cocktail would taste “off” without Peychaud’s and my favorite Old Fashioned unthinkable without two dashes of time-honored Angostura.)
Bitters inducts us into the realm of these botanical “drugs” distilled from flowers, spices, citrus peels, tree bark—all originally dispensed in apothecary shops as cures for digestive woes, stomach troubles, even gout. By the Gilded Age, bitters transited to the bar under brands sounding sketchy (e.g. Flint’s Quaker Bitters), but Bitters opens a new botanical wonderland for my armchair imagining, and for others’ venturesome do-it-yourself distillation. Key Lime Bitters, anyone?
Gone are the days when a lonely bottle of Angostura bitters held court behind the bar. A cocktail renaissance has swept across the country, inspiring in bartenders and their thirsty patrons a new fascination with the ingredients, techniques, and traditions that make the American cocktail so special. And few ingredients have as rich a history or serve as fundamental a role in our beverage heritage as bitters.
Author and bitters enthusiast Brad Thomas Parsons traces the history of the world’s most storied elixir, from its earliest “snake oil” days to its near evaporation after Prohibition to its ascension as a…
Nightclubs and country clubs figured in my father’s business distributing snack foods in post-WWII “Steel City,” Pittsburgh, where I was served “Shirley Temple” cocktails in martini glasses alongside my parents’ Manhattans. (To my five- and six-year-old eye, the trophy was the maraschino cherry.) Decades later, teaching American literature in the university, my interest deepened in Jack London’s writing, and my book on him demanded close attention to the history of US cocktails and other drinks. London’s memoir, John Barleycorn, frankly details his drinking and eventual capture by alcohol. As a scholar-researcher, I was “captured” by the backstory of US cocktail culture.
Double duty as a bar book and memoir makes Crockett’s chronicle my must for skillfully conjuring two historical moments: the Golden Age of Cocktails (a.k.a. the Gilded Age) and the dark era of Prohibition. Anxious that memories of delectable cocktails and their recipes had been buried in the crypt of Prohibition’s thirteen years (1920-1933), journalist Crockett hastened to record and revive the drinks. His history is spot-on, and his fury at the nation’s failed “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition fuels this survivor’s fine wordsmithing.
Crockett was a prominent journalist, writer and publicist. He contributed many observations on New York City nightlife during Prohibition, especially regarding the social life of the Waldorf-Astoria. This collection provides 500 cocktail recipes served at the Waldorf and is one of the first post-Prohibition books of its kind.
The author also provides glimpses of the history of the renowned bar, where he served as the historian of the Old Waldorf Astoria.
Raised on happy hours on Cape Cod, MA patios with my Irish-American relatives, I long have been fascinated by how alcohol can bring people together and facilitate bonds that traverse both hardship and joy. During my travels and research in Mexico, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, and Ecuador, I observed how alcohol could both render families asunder and unite communities. As addiction makes clear, alcohol could hold tremendous power over individuals. But it also marked the identities of even the most casual drinkers. Throughout my research on other topics—crime, gender, medicine—alcohol consistently emerges as a crucial avenue of inquiry. The books listed below offer innovative and insightful ways of centering alcohol in scholarly narratives.
Smith traces the historical arc of rum from local colonial consumption to becoming a major export by the nineteenth century.
I am amazed at how much history Smith captures by focusing his study on one type of alcohol. With his attention to how European and African drinking habits shaped rum consumption, he demonstrates how rum cut across gender, class, and race relations.
With their knowledge of distillation and introduction of resources new to the Americas, Europeans increased alcohol’s potency. Alcohol took on political as well as economic significance when colonial officials used alcohol revenue to govern. Without displacing fermented drinks, distilled liquor introduced new dynamics in the production and consumption of alcohol.
I love that he emphasizes how common consumption spurred taverns and other drinking establishments, which facilitated socialization that frequently contravened social norms, such as elite men who conversed with poor and working-class women and African and mulatto drinkers…
Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World on his second voyage. By 1520 commercial sugar production was underway in the Caribbean, along with the perfection of methods to ferment and distill alcohol from sugarcane to produce a new beverage that would have dramatic impact on the region. Caribbean Rum presents the fascinating cultural, economic, and ethnographic history of rum in the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present.
Drawing on data from historical archaeology and the economic history of the Caribbean, Frederick Smith explains why this industry arose in the islands, how attitudes toward alcohol consumption have impacted…
I am an Antiguan-Barbudan writer. When I was a teen, there weren’t a lot of books from my world. So, I was excited when the Burt Award for teen/young adult Caribbean literature was announced. While that prize ran its course after five years, it left a library of great books in this genre, including my own Musical Youth which placed second in the inaugural year of the prize. I have since served as a judge of the Caribbean prize and mentor for the Africa-leg. I love that this series of books tap into different genres and styles in demonstrating the dynamism of modern Caribbean literature. For more on me, my books, and my take on books, visit my website.
The Puerto Rican author draws on her grandmother’s experience to tell the story of a girl in Cuba on the cusp of revolution. While the historical fiction follows the day-to-day of the girl emerging to teen-hood and her family – brother, mother, father, and abuelo – it also feels dangerous as bombs go off, people are disappeared, and shadows of a more personal kind encroach on her familial bliss. Through this prism, the reader gets a sense of the class and power dynamics at play, from school where sadistic nuns are the law to the Law which acts with cruel impunity, and the resentment, heartache, and violence simmering underneath the alluring resort island. It’s the pressure cooker on the verge of blowing its lid for me!
It is 1957 in Marianao, a suburb of Havana. Adela Santiago is 13 years old and lives in a small blue house with her mother, father, brother, and grandfather. And yet something is amiss. The students on her street are disappearing. Not only that but her parents' marriage seems to be disintegrating and her cousin is caught up in a bombing at the Hotel Nacional. Welcome to a world where a revolution is brewing. Welcome to Cuba.
I have lived in Gettysburg, PA, all of my life, so I’m drawn to historical fiction, especially the Civil War era. The 1860s is the perfect setting for the enemies-to-lovers trope, and I am lucky enough to be surrounded by history all of the time. In doing lots of research, I have found that enemies fell in love more often than you might think during the Civil War. I hope you enjoy this list of books that got me interested in reading and continue to keep my attention to this day.
I love this book because it made me fall in love with books and reading! It was the first “historical romance” book I ever read, and it is still among my favorites of all time.
The strong, masculine lead character pitted against Shanna, who is equally stubborn and independent, makes a novel full of fireworks and passion. It’s also a long, meaty novel, which I love, and full of twists and turns throughout.
"Shanna" is a magnificent tale of freedom and passionate destiny from incomparable storyteller Kathleen Woodiwiss. In 1749, heiress Shanna Trahern marries convict Ruark Beauchamp, only to abandon her bridegroom to set sail to the Caribbean, with her determined bridegroom in pursuit.
For almost thirty years, I have studied and tried to understand Latin America and the Caribbean. As a historian I have worked with manuscripts and newspapers and books, in archives and libraries and private collections, but I’ve learned my most important lessons elsewhere: on the baseball diamond in Holguín, Cuba, at pick-up cricket matches in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and in soccer stadiums in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires. These books help give us a sense of the power of such places, the power of sports to reveal the region, and as such they’re a great place to start to understand it.
Naturally, when we think of sports in Latin America we first think of the region’s great athletes, from Pelé to Roberto Clemente, from Lionel Messi to Albert Pujols. But baseball and soccer players do not make sports meaningful on their own; many others – owners, sponsors, politicians, fans – make them what they are. This is the essential insight that guides Thomas Carter’s anthropology of Cuban baseball. He acknowledges the important role of the Communist regime in shaping the game, but he shows convincingly that the game belongs to its fans, for it is their passion that makes baseball important to Cuba, and it is their arguments about the game which make it a site for the negotiation of what it means to be Cuban.
In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. Thomas F. Carter contends that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and cubanidad, or what it means to be Cuban. The Quality of Home Runs is Carter's lively ethnographic exploration of the interconnections between baseball and Cuban identity. Suggesting that baseball is in many ways an apt metaphor for cubanidad, Carter points out aspects of the sport that resonate with Cuban social and political life: the perpetual tension between risk and security,…
I am an Antiguan-Barbudan writer. When I was a teen, there weren’t a lot of books from my world. So, I was excited when the Burt Award for teen/young adult Caribbean literature was announced. While that prize ran its course after five years, it left a library of great books in this genre, including my own Musical Youth which placed second in the inaugural year of the prize. I have since served as a judge of the Caribbean prize and mentor for the Africa-leg. I love that this series of books tap into different genres and styles in demonstrating the dynamism of modern Caribbean literature. For more on me, my books, and my take on books, visit my website.
The interiority of a depressed, perpetually anxious, and possibly suicidal teen girl recently relocated from Trinidad to Canada is captured with detail and sensitivity. Her trusted circle consists of a single friend from home, her aunt and aunt’s partner with whom she lives in Edmonton, and a new boy, who stirs other complicated feelings in her. The fractures in her relationship with her mother, back home, remain unhealed. It is a deeply melancholic book but it can also potentially make any young person struggling with the same issues feel a little less alone.All of Burt's books are published by Caribbean publishers; to Home Home’s credit, it is one of a handful to have also been released with the US publisher. It’s the realness and insight for me!
Fans of Monday's Not Coming and Girl in Pieces will love this award-winning novel about a girl on the verge of losing herself and her unlikely journey to recovery after she is removed from anything and everyone she knows to be home.
Moving from Trinidad to Canada wasn't her idea. But after being hospitalized for depression, her mother sees it as the only option. Now, living with an estranged aunt she barely remembers and dealing with her "troubles" in a foreign country, she feels more lost than ever.
Everything in Canada is cold and confusing. No one says hello, no…
I have always had a lifelong passion for all things maritime. In the early 1980s, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a crew companion to the late famous Captain Ted Falcon Barker, author of The Devil’s Gold. The expedition made landfall in the Bahamas, so this area became a focus of fascination. I also have a very strong historical sense, reflected in my poetry and two of my other works of fiction, the novels Charity Amour and No Gentle Bondage.
Michener’s work is an historical panorama, embracing pre-Columbian history, the colonial era – including piracy, right up to the rise of Fidel Castro’s regime. ‘No holds barred.' An absolute ‘must’ for anyone wanting a full background perspective. I found this a fantastic broadener of my horizons.
In this acclaimed classic novel, James A. Michener sweeps readers off to the Caribbean, bringing to life the eternal allure and tumultuous history of this glittering string of islands. From the 1310 conquest of the Arawaks by cannibals to the decline of the Mayan empire, from Columbus’s arrival to buccaneer Henry Morgan’s notorious reign, from the bloody slave revolt on Haiti to the rise of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Caribbean packs seven hundred dramatic years into a tale teeming with revolution and romance, authentic characters and thunderous destinies. Through absorbing, magnificent prose, Michener captures the essence of the islands in all…
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