Here are 100 books that Everyday Drinking fans have personally recommended if you like
Everyday Drinking.
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One of my fondest childhood memories is the holiday parties that my parents threw. Lying in bed I could hear roars of laughter crash the silence and gently ebb as the grownups shared stories and made merry. Later in life, I came to realize how different that kind of drinking is from the frat-boy binging of college and the anxious bracers at singles’ bars. As an adult, I became a Catholic theologian, got married, and had a family of my own. My wife Alexandra and I have relished an evening cocktail together in order to unwind and catch up on each other’s day (Alexandra has homeschooled all six of our children, which is itself a compelling reason to drink daily).
Will-Weber extensively researched the drinking habits of every U.S. president from George Washington to Barack Obama to compose this outstanding volume. Mint Juleps is brimming with fascinating facts. Did you know that the Carters, who were Southern Baptists, were much heavier drinkers than the Reagans? (Ronald Reagan, who effectively imposed the twenty-one-year drinking age on all fifty states, was the son of an alcoholic and wary of alcohol abuse). I think that I enjoyed the profile of George Washington the most, who not only plotted American independence over a pint or two but distilled his own applejack brandy as well.
Stroll through our country’s memorable moments—from George Washington at Mount Vernon to the days of Prohibition, from impeachment hearings to nuclear weapons negotiations—and discover the role that alcohol played in all of them with Mark Will-Weber’s Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking.
As America transformed from fledgling nation to world power, one element remained constant: alcohol. The eighteenth century saw the Father of His Country distilling whiskey in his backyard. The nineteenth century witnessed the lavish expenses on wine by the Sage of Monticello, Honest Abe’s inclination toward temperance, and the slurred speech of the…
One of my fondest childhood memories is the holiday parties that my parents threw. Lying in bed I could hear roars of laughter crash the silence and gently ebb as the grownups shared stories and made merry. Later in life, I came to realize how different that kind of drinking is from the frat-boy binging of college and the anxious bracers at singles’ bars. As an adult, I became a Catholic theologian, got married, and had a family of my own. My wife Alexandra and I have relished an evening cocktail together in order to unwind and catch up on each other’s day (Alexandra has homeschooled all six of our children, which is itself a compelling reason to drink daily).
It’s hard not to relish a clever pun, especially when it involves an allusion to good literature, and it’s even harder not to relish an entire book of them. Tim Federle combines the Great Books and great drinks with cocktails such as Brave New Swirled, The Cooler Purple, Paradise Sauced, Moby-Drink, The Sound and the Slurry, and The Last of the Mojitos.
December 2013: Goodreads Choice Award (Food & Cookbooks)December 2013: Entertainment Weekly Great Gifts for Book LoversDecember 2013: BookPage Best of 2013October 2014: Clue on Jeopardy Congrats. You fought through War and Peace , burned through Fahrenheit 451 , and sailed through Moby-Dick . All right, you nearly drowned in Moby-Dick , but you made it to shore,and you deserve a drink! A fun gift for barflies and a terrific treat for book clubs, Tequila Mockingbird is the ultimate cocktail book for the literary obsessed. Featuring 65 delicious drink recipes,paired with wry commentary on history's most beloved novels,the book also includes…
One of my fondest childhood memories is the holiday parties that my parents threw. Lying in bed I could hear roars of laughter crash the silence and gently ebb as the grownups shared stories and made merry. Later in life, I came to realize how different that kind of drinking is from the frat-boy binging of college and the anxious bracers at singles’ bars. As an adult, I became a Catholic theologian, got married, and had a family of my own. My wife Alexandra and I have relished an evening cocktail together in order to unwind and catch up on each other’s day (Alexandra has homeschooled all six of our children, which is itself a compelling reason to drink daily).
Philip Greene is probably the world’s greatest living cocktail historian (how cool is that?). I am personally grateful to him for correcting and guiding my own work. Greene has written several excellent cocktail books. In To Have and Have Another, he canvases Hemingway’s personal preferences as well as the drinks featured in his writings. I hope that Greene one day does something similar with Evelyn Waugh and his novels, though it may fill several volumes.
Ernest Hemingway is nearly as famous for his drinking as he is for his writing. Throughout his collected works, Papa's sensuous explorations of the delights of imbibing engaged both his characters and his readers.
In To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion, Philip Greene, cocktail historian, spirits consultant, and cofounder of the Museum of the American Cocktail, offers us a view of Papa through the lens Papa himself preferred—the bottom of a glass.
A bartender’s manual for Hemingway enthusiasts, this revised and expanded volume offers a unique take on Hemingway’s oeuvre that privileges the tastes, smells, and colors…
One of my fondest childhood memories is the holiday parties that my parents threw. Lying in bed I could hear roars of laughter crash the silence and gently ebb as the grownups shared stories and made merry. Later in life, I came to realize how different that kind of drinking is from the frat-boy binging of college and the anxious bracers at singles’ bars. As an adult, I became a Catholic theologian, got married, and had a family of my own. My wife Alexandra and I have relished an evening cocktail together in order to unwind and catch up on each other’s day (Alexandra has homeschooled all six of our children, which is itself a compelling reason to drink daily).
This could be the most bizarre monograph you will ever have on your bookshelf. The subtitle is no lie: for every letter of the alphabet, Zmirak has assembled an entertaining assortment of food recipes, drinking songs, history lessons, wine suggestions, or one of the Ten Commandments impishly explained. In the dedication, Zmirak and contributing author Denise Matychowiak list as their inspirations Pope Benedict XVI, food authors Paula Wolfert and M.F.K. Fisher, and Weird Al Yankovic. Need I say more?
This sequel to the highly-praised Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living allows you to view Catholic life from a unique perspective. Starting with the wines, beers, and liquors made around the world by monks, the authors explore everything from Irish history to the secrets of the Knights Templar, with drinking games, food, and cocktail recipes, and rollicking drinking songs.
Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle are both curators at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Rob is a molecular systematist who has done research on everything from fruit fly diversity to human language, and Ian is a specialist in the study of human evolution and primates. They have collaborated on several exhibition projects, including the American Museum’s Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, and have written several books together, including the trilogy we are featuring here.
People have been making and drinking alcoholic beverages for as long as the technology has been around that allows them to do so – some 8,000 years, as it turns out. In this glorious gallop through the long and varied history – or, rather, multifarious histories – of beer, wine, and spirits around the world, packed with odd facts that will make you a champ at any booze trivia quiz, Iain Gately entertainingly shows how tightly intertwined the various forms of alcoholic beverages have been over the centuries with the societies that produce them, and how our western love/hate relationship with the demon alcohol has evolved.
A spirited look at the history of alcohol, from the dawn of civilization to the modern day
Alcohol is a fundamental part of Western culture. We have been drinking as long as we have been human, and for better or worse, alcohol has shaped our civilization. Drink investigates the history of this Jekyll and Hyde of fluids, tracing mankind's love/hate relationship with alcohol from ancient Egypt to the present day.
Drink further documents the contribution of alcohol to the birth and growth of the United States, taking in the War of Independence, the Pennsylvania Whiskey revolt, the slave trade, and…
Derek Sandhaus is an award-winning American author of several books on Chinese history and culture. He worked as an editor, publisher, and tour guide in Shanghai, then moved to Chengdu and turned to drink. In 2018 he co-founded Ming River Sichuan Baijiu with China’s oldest distillery, and now spends most of his time talking about Chinese alcohol to anyone who will listen. He currently lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and a very well-traveled dog.
Patrick McGovern is an archeologist on a mission to discover ancient tipples. In Uncorking the Past he recounts several of his most significant finds, including the world’s oldest-known manmade alcoholic beverage at Jiahu, a nine-thousand-year-old site near the Yellow River in north-central China. The story of its discovery—and recreation with Dogfish Head Brewery—is fascinating, but the explanation of the role of alcohol in neolithic Chinese life makes it required reading.
In a lively tour around the world and through the millennia, "Uncorking the Past" tells the compelling story of humanity's ingenious, intoxicating quest for the perfect drink. Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, brings us up to date on what we now know about how humans created and enjoyed fermented beverages across cultures. Along the way, he explores a provocative hypothesis about the integral role such libations have played in human evolution. We discover, for example, that the cereal staples of the modern world were…
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.
With clear and engaging prose, Gaytan reveals the power dynamics that shaped tequila’s trajectory in Mexico and abroad.
She traces tequila’s meteoric rise past other agave-derived drinks like pulque and mezcal. I really appreciate how she approaches her study as a sociologist but does not eschew history in her analysis. Although ancient Mayas were among the first to produce and consume tequila, its association with modernity can be attributed, in part, to modern marketers disassociating tequila from indigenous inebriation.
Even as she firmly grounds tequila in lo Mexicano or being Mexican, Gaytan also explores tequila’s influence and popularity in the United States. Her book reminded me how different my experience of drinking tequila in the United States has been from my enjoyment of tequila in cantinas in Mexico.
Italy has grappa, Russia has vodka, Jamaica has rum. Around the world, certain drinks-especially those of the intoxicating kind-are synonymous with their peoples and cultures. For Mexico, this drink is tequila. For many, tequila can conjure up scenes of body shots on Cancun bars and coolly garnished margaritas on sandy beaches. Its power is equally strong within Mexico, though there the drink is more often sipped rather than shot, enjoyed casually among friends, and used to commemorate occasions from the everyday to the sacred. Despite these competing images, tequila is universally regarded as an enduring symbol of lo mexicano.
While the Bay Area’s impact on the way we eat as a country, being at the forefront of the farm-to-table and seasonal produce movement, cocktails are being equal consideration. Why not? Distilled spirits are agricultural products, the same way wine and beer are, and so it reasons that we would worry about how they are made, their history, and the future. Can cocktails be made in a more sustainable way? Can I use beets in my cocktail? Do spirits have a sense of place? And will applying beer to a wound help it heal (note: it won’t)? Here’s a selection of books that explore the past, present, and possible future of how you drink.
A fun read that explores the surprising history of alcohol used to treat medical maladies, from the Carthusian monks creating herbal elixirs, to the invention of tonic water to cure malaria.
English winds though the various maladies like wounds to worms to snakebites, and all the questionable, but delicious prescriptions, from gin and tonics to bourbon whiskey.
“At last, a definitive guide to the medicinal origins of every bottle behind the bar! This is the cocktail book of the year, if not the decade.” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants
“A fascinating book that makes a brilliant historical case for what I’ve been saying all along: alcohol is good for you…okay maybe it’s not technically good for you, but [English] shows that through most of human history, it’s sure beat the heck out of water.” —Alton Brown, creator of Good Eats
Beer-based wound care, deworming with wine, whiskey for snakebites, and medicinal mixers…
I’m a social and cultural historian of North America and Latin America, specializing in the history of alcohol, food, and identity. When I’m not researching, writing, or teaching about food history, I’m generally cooking, eating or thinking about food, perusing recipe books, or watching cookery programs on TV. I have been especially fascinated by all things Mexico since I read Bernal Díaz’s A True History of the Conquest of New Spainas a teenager, and I think Mexican cuisine is the best in the world.
As a historian of alcohol, I sometimes get asked why I study something so niche; this book shows that alcohol history is anything but! The ten scholars who have contributed to Alcohol in Latin Americacover issues of commerce, taxation, regulation, and state-building; the formation and expression of different ethnic, gender, class, and national identities; and concepts of progress, modernity, tradition, and authenticity. They discuss these issues over more than five hundred years of history, with reference to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Andes, Guatemala, and Mexico, and by drawing on archaeological, anthropological, literary, and marketing studies. It is incredibly wide-ranging. As a wine-lover, I found the chapters by Nancy Hanway and Steve Stein tracing the development of the Argentine wine industry from the 1860s to the 1990s especially interesting.
Aguardente, chicha, pulque, vino—no matter whether it’s distilled or fermented, alcohol either brings people together or pulls them apart. Alcohol in Latin America is a sweeping examination of the deep reasons why. This book takes an in-depth look at the social and cultural history of alcohol and its connection to larger processes in Latin America. Using a painting depicting a tavern as a metaphor, the authors explore the disparate groups and individuals imbibing as an introduction to their study. In so doing, they reveal how alcohol production, consumption, and regulation have been intertwined with the history of Latin America since…
I'm an award-winning travel and drinks writer and have worked for National Geographic, The Times, BBC Travel, American Express, AAA, Waitrose Drinks, and many more. My love of spirits and travel led to me starting the Travel Distilled website and I'm the author of Cask Strength, which tells the story of the barrel, and of the travel guides Islay Distilled and Cognac Distilled. I've visited numerous distilleries in the UK, Ireland, USA, France, Greece, Iceland, Sweden, Mexico, and elsewhere. I was persuaded to try drinking vodka for breakfast while touring Siberia. It seemed a good idea at the time but it's not a habit I've kept up.
Proof is a fascinating read about the science of booze. If you think that sounds a little dull and academic, it isn't. I bought it at the recommendation of a writer friend, Reid Mitenbuler (author of Bourbon Empire), and was so glad I did.
It delves into the science of creating alcohol, but in a way that the general reader can enjoy: a fungus called yeast eats up sugar and poops out ethanol, in layman's terms. But it goes way beyond that into what makes us want and enjoy a drink, what's happening in our brains and our bodies, and, yes, the science of hangovers.
A New York Times bestseller, science journalist Adam Rogers's Proof is a spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science of alcohol, sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, and its effects on our bodies and brains, from "one of the best science writers around" (National Geographic).
Winner of Gourmand Award for Best Spirits Book An IACP Cookbook Awards Winner Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Humans have been perfecting alcohol production for ten thousand years, but scientists are just starting to distill the chemical reactions behind the perfect buzz. In a…
