The most recommended cocktail books

I adore reading books where women over the age of 40 are celebrated and highlights that they have full and rich lives. Their romantic lives aren’t dead, nor is their zest for adventure. This series of four books features each woman who is strong on her own but with her friends they are unstoppable and funny and who doesn’t wish we all had a touch of magic at our fingertips too. I love reading books that inspire me to live a full and rich life and even write those kinds of characters too.

This book was published at the beginning of the cocktail revolution and was instrumental to creating the idea that cocktails could be based on peak season produce in the same way that food is.

Everything from herbs, fruits, and vegetables get featured in a drink. While the book is historically important, it still feels modern, packed with techniques to make the best of the season’s bounty. 

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!”

Handbook for Hosts is a throwback to a golden era, when dinner parties were an artform. This book covers the whole gamut: everything from canape suggestions, food recipes, cocktail recipes, how to stock your home bar, party games, conversation tips, the dos and don’t of hosting, and even 365 excuses for a party! This is the kind of book they don’t make anymore, but you wish they would. It’s entertaining, insightful, and beautifully formatted. Read this book and you’ll be a dinner party Jedi in no time.

While most of my professional drinking involves bourbon, my favorite change-of-pace cocktail is the martini. Lavishly illustrated, the book caught my eye when it was first published more than a quarter-century ago. Also, I had to own a book whose author had the splendidly Wodehousian name, Barnaby Conrad, III. Herein you’ll find photos and quotations of famous martini drinkers, both real and fictional, from Franklin Roosevelt and Dorothy Parker to James Bond and Nick and Nora Charles. Alas, it was published too soon to cite the wonderful scene in the film “Carol” when Cate Blanchett orders “a dry martini with an olive” at lunch. An illustration of two 1930s screen beauties pouring martinis from an Art Deco shaker inspired me to track down an identical specimen at an antiques mall. 

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. 

Australian bartender Chad Parkhill tells the origin stories of eighty iconic cocktails, mixing history and geography in this clever book that is at once a resource and drinks manual. Want to know how the G&T traveled from India to England? Or the history of the Kir Royale? This book shares it all so readers are sure to be the smartest guests at the next cocktail party. Vibrant, lush illustrations make the book extra-captivating. 

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?

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Tony Conigliaro’s Drink Factory laboratory in London where I found a mad scientist’s lair filled with complex, technical equipment, dry erase boards covered in formulas, and shelves of esoteric, bottled ingredients. While The Cocktail Lab finds a logical home in the era of molecular mixology, it is far more than that, showcasing its author as part chemist, part bartender, and part magician. First and foremost, the book captures what Conigliaro calls his “love affair with liquids”. The book’s cocktails – many of which I have tasted – are sensory experiences that capture not only flavors, but aromas, textures, and even memories. While modernizing many classic recipes, Conigliaro simultaneously pushes the definition of what a cocktail is and can be. For me, The Cocktail Lab celebrates the ever-evolving possibilities of liquid pleasure in the modern world and how a cocktail can be a transformative… show more.

A cocktail book from one of my favorite long-standing neighborhood Brooklyn bars.

Their appreciation of New Orleans and more importantly great food, drinks, and service is now compiled into one concise ‘almanac’ with an extraordinary section on oysters that is a must-read for any lover of these briny bivalves. I also appreciate that a fair amount of the recipes are classic in nature and fairly easy to replicate for the home user, all while explaining the origin stories of the most endearing concoctions.

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.

Named after a small section of the Barbary Coast in San Francisco that was infamous for the hard-drinking saloons, McDonnell explores the scandalous history through 25 cocktails.

Each drink made famous in San Francisco, from the classic Pisco Punch to modern classics like the Revolver, paint a vivid picture of the history of foggy San Francisco.

Harry Craddock was a master behind the bar, and The Savoy Cocktail Book may be the most thorough chronicle of classic recipes from the Prohibition era. With the 18th Amendment, Americans had only two choices if they wanted a drink in a bar: go to an illegal speakeasy or head to places beyond the grip of the teetotalers. One of these spots was the American Bar in London’s Savoy Hotel, so named because it was one of the first bars where one could sip “American” cocktails. The no-nonsense layout and massive breadth of the recipes make this a must-have for both the layman and the professional. Among Harry Craddock’s words of wisdom is this nugget: “Shake the shaker as hard as you can: don’t just rock it: you are trying to wake it up, not send it to sleep!” I follow this advice with every drink I shake.

From his time defining the cocktails at the Slanted Door, Vogler has been on a mission to look beyond the industrially produced and artificially flavored and colored spirits that line most bars.

Spirits with a sense of place, like great wines, made with the care and respect, that speak of a region and the hand of the maker are carefully explored in each chapter. Travel with Vogler as he visits distillers around the world in search of singular spirits.

The Schofield brothers have a combined pedigree that is hard to match having worked in some of the world’s best bars over the past 10-15 years.

Their book is an amazing collection of over 100 classic cocktails brought into the 21st century with contemporary ingredients, finest techniques, and great recommendations of spirits, ice, and garnishes for each cocktail in the book. A must-read for someone looking to delve into classic cocktails.

For any serious bartender, they can classify their experience as before they read Embury, and after. I remember reading this book early on in my career; it changed the way I thought about drinks, and made me realise how deep the rabbit hole can go. This isn’t just a list of recipes, but a deep dive into the basic principles of cocktails and their fundamental components. Published in 1948, one beauty of this book is how opinionated and acerbic the author is. David Embury wasn’t even a bartender, he was a tax attorney who loved making cocktails at home for his guests, and yet deploying his sharp mind and ready wit, he managed to write one of the most influential drinks books of all time.

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.

Although a well-known writer in his time, penning columns for Esquire and Town & Country, Charles H Baker Jr. fell into obscurity until the cocktail resurgence of the 2000s. He circumnavigated the globe three times between the two World Wars and recorded his travels in a hilarious travelogue and drinks manual entitled Jigger, Beaker and Glass. The book is a delightful and delicious journey, full of memorable anecdotes and vivid descriptions of his stops around the world. What’s more, the collection reveals Baker’s gusto for life, travel, and imbibing -- he was truly one of history’s great bon vivants. Happily, Baker is now a cocktail-world icon, with the highly regarded Charles H bar in Seoul, Korea, directly inspired by his work. 

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.

Who doesn’t love a wooden book? Seriously, its cover is made of wood, and it’s bound together with cut leather. The internal pages have the tea-stained look of an old pirate map and smell like the very old books you find in the back of a goodwill store. My copy was given to me by Dick Bradsell, inventor of some of the most enduring modern classics such as the Bramble and Espresso Martini. It’s a true gem, not just for the wonderful recipes but for the illustrations — by far the most charming and amusing that you’ll find in any cocktail book. But if you’re getting the impression this book is all hokey-charm and no substance, you’d be very wrong. This is a tight collection of well-presented recipes, a really functional resource, as well as a fun one.