65 books like Drinking Distilled

This no-frills cocktail handbook has been hailed the “Most-read cocktail expert around” for a good reason.

Regan engagingly romanticizes cocktail and drinking culture. He details the history of specific cocktails, includes theories of how certain drinks came about and adds quotes about drinking from notable figures.

He makes you want to try drinks you have yet to try. He also muses about the philosophy of being a bartender and what it takes to be a good bartender.

Although the author makes it a humorous and fun read, the book is much more. It is a thoughtfully laid-out handbook for creating classic cocktails. Of course, one can search for a recipe by cocktail name.

But the book includes a great glossary, and charts by the family of cocktail, making it easy to be like; it’s been a long day, and we have some leftover rye and lemons in the fridge. What… show more.

Recommending books with various recipes would be too easy (after all, that’s what my book is for). I think it would be an interesting leap for enthusiastic imbibers to explore what works and why. The Flavor Thesaurus will also carry over to the kitchen where everything ties together. I have used this reference book to the point of disintegration, especially when turning the calendar pages of seasonality as foods and ingredients disappear from the radar for months at a time. It has alternately saved and educated me through the years.

Knowing what we drink and how it’s made can be as interesting as knowing what to do with it once it’s on your table (or bar). Among the many whiskey books out there, The Complete Whiskey Course does a great job at covering a lot of ground in an unpretentious and welcoming manner. From the distilling process to label identification (a very handy chapter for newbies and pros alike), origin stories, and unique tasting notes, this book makes for a fun gateway platform for deeper educational dives as the drinker’s interest and experience grows.

Ending as I began, on the lighter side of things, I think that The Bloody Mary makes for an interesting single subject cocktail book as one can find. From its convoluted origins to its over-the-top renditions, the bloody mary is one of the very few recipes that have been consistently enjoyed from the Prohibition era throughout the 20th century and onward to today. Most proponents of the drink all claim to make the best one, so understanding the nuances of something as fun and all-encompassing as this brunch-time favorite, is bound to keep conversations going. And if nothing else, if you’re going to begin a drinker’s library, you may as well start with the one that’s the first drink of the day. 

So often, booze history has not been carefully written down, and Simonson wanted to ensure that would not be the case when it came to the cocktail renaissance that kicked off in the early 21st century.

Chapter by chapter, he introduces us to the players—bartenders, bar owners, producers, and reps—along with the bars that reinvigorated a nearly-dead American tradition of Martinis, Manhattans, Margaritas, and many more drinks that are now, thanks to them, ubiquitous everywhere on the globe.

This well-researched volume explores the history of cocktails in the U.S. through the godfather of bartenders everywhere, Jerry Thomas. 

Since Thomas was the first to systematically record the drinks of his age, publishing his first bartender’s guide in 1862, his writings serve as important historic sources from anyone interested in mixology.  

Bartender guides tend to be terse and practical, reducing storied and noble creations to a few efficient lines of text.  Wondrich engagingly discusses the history and merits of more than one hundred cocktails, all of which illuminate the times and places in which they were created and drank. 

The result is a series of revelations about the drinks, some famous and some forgotten, that imbibers typically take for granted. Just like a good recipe, it takes history, culture, and geography to inspire a good cocktail. Thanks to Wondrich and his research, the history is much more accessible in this… show more.

This book sits on the easy-to-access shelf right next to my desk. With over 1,000 entries – drink recipes, definitions, bar equipment – it is a handy quick reference guide. The cocktail recipes even include an icon depicting appropriate glassware. It’s especially useful for looking up somewhat obscure ingredients. I’ll admit I didn’t know what Friesengeist was. The Herbsts give the pronunciation [FREET-zhen-gighst] and the definition, “A potent LIQUEUR from Germany. See also MINT-FLAVORED SPIRITS.” The capitalizations are cross-references. Peppered throughout the text are notable quotes, including this one from the great Julia Child, “Forget the cheap white wine; go to beef and gin!”

William T. Boothby’s bartending guide was published 29 years after the first cocktail recipe book written in 1862 by American barman/impresario Jerry Thomas. In my opinion, Cocktail Boothby’s offers a more mature vision of cocktail culture in the 19th and early 20th century’s Golden Age, serving as a boozy time machine back to the era when many classic cocktails – the Manhattan, the Martini, the Mint Julep, to name a few – were born. Along with a thorough compendium of recipes, the book includes Boothby’s “Valuable Suggestions” to bartenders (“Do not serve a frosted glass to a gentleman who wears a mustache”) and his “Ten Commandments” of bartending, as well as a selection of old advertisements and various handwritten recipes. The author’s celebration of, as he calls it, “the art of mixology”, never fails to delight me.

Ryan is undoubtedly the biggest name in cocktails right now. He has pioneered numerous venues in London and around the world focused on changing the way we think about bars and cocktails.

His book is not only a great entry into the world of cocktails with great classic recipes, but it also showcases interesting flavour combinations and techniques that can be used both in a bar and at home.

I just love how this book looks, first of all. It has an elegant, art deco, classy vibe that really sets the mood, and your mood is an important part of enjoying a good cocktail, or any drink for that matter.

There are some cocktails in here I know I'll never make, I'm not going to mix up my own bone tincture, but that doesn't matter. This isn't so much a recipe book for the home mixologist as it is a coffee-table collection of inspiring drinks.

When I leaf through the pages and look at all the gorgeous photographs, it sets me dreaming of which bars I want to visit next. That being said, it still features plenty of cocktails I'll want to whip up the next time I have guests over.