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A few of the new booze books

Booze-themed cookbooks have never been terribly high on our everyday shopping lists, but there are those weekend moments when The Food of Morocco isn't quite what we're craving. OK, that's not really true. We'd be content with Paula Wolfert's harissa any day of the week. But we're all for occasionally having a little tipsy fun in the kitchen.

It also seems to be a trendy thing, as we've seen a steady stream of alcohol-inspired books arrive on our doorstep lately. The three that follow -- Beer, A Cookbook; Edible Cocktails; Never Cook Sober -- all happen to be from the same publisher, Adams Media (Beer, A Cookbook is actually a group effort from the Adams Media staff). Yeah, we're pretty sure they have really great office parties. Get a summary of each after the jump.

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mooreandgiles.com

The PDT Cocktail Book

With New Year's Eve looming, we're forgoing our usual cookbook of the week in favor of the libation version. Not just any cocktail book, but The PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan and illustrator Chris Gall, the only beverage book that made it into our Best of 2011 "cookbook" list.

Yeah, we're already content with Mr. Boston's and his old school cocktail book buddies, which are being re-issued with vigor lately. Add in the slew of trendy new cocktail books making the rounds (presuming you're into that thyme-sage-whatever else simple syrup infusion sort of thing), and who needs another cocktail book? Or another classic Champagne cocktail recipe (get it after the jump). We do.

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jgarbee

Still Life With (Good) 2011 Cookbooks

Because if you still haven't gotten a gift for someone of genuine or obligatory importance on your list (your closest friend; your boss/mother in law), check those Amazon availability lists right now. Or better yet, stop by your local bookstore.

We've reviewed a lot of books this year, and we've already given you a few "favorites" lists. But here are what we consider The Best Cookbooks of 2011 (and one cocktail book for kicks). Not the best general cookbooks, practical as they are. These are those engaging (yet useful) cookbooks that for some reason, you just can't seem to put down. A motley crew of cookbooks on very different subjects for polar opposite audiences. The L.A. demographic in cookbook form, essentially.

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JGarbee

Mr Boston's Then (Left) And Now

With more editions than we can guesstimate, the 75th anniversary edition of Mr. Boston's Official Bartender's Guide arrived on our desk with little fanfare (on our end, at least). After all, the book's signature minimalist layout and no-frills recipes are the appeal. It's the sort of book you pick up when a dinner party guests announces, just after you've squeezed dozens of limes for tequilas, how much they really do love a classic Montreal Gin Sour (gin, lemon juice, powdered sugar). Or for some, Mr. Boston's is guaranteed Friday night cocktail roulette fun, the sort of guidebook you pull out blindfolded and point to a page to find some "Fancy Brandy" conversation fodder (brandy, triple sec, simple syrup, Angostura bitters, lemon twist).

In other words, why would anyone need this soon-to-be-released updated version?

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N. Galuten

Barman Brady Weise at Library Bar

In part one of our interview with Library Bar and 1886 bartender Brady Weise, we talked a lot about alcohol. We discussed the term "craft cocktail," the L.A. bar scene, and a little about the cocktail's history in the United States. In part 2, Weise tells about us how Americans learned to eventually make good drinks again after Prohibition, the resurgence of the classic cocktail, and what he hates making above all else.

Weise was also kind enough to pass along his own recipe, for a cocktail called, "Amore de Pemacchia" (check back later for that one). After all, the holidays are coming up, and what better excuse to start drinking than, "I just found this new cocktail recipe and I wanted to see how it turns out."

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Flickr user jennhx

To Get Beyond The Absinthe Drip, We Highly Recommend A Cocktail Book

Here's something to be thankful for in the wake of Prop 19's smoldering remains -- absinthe is still legal after three years. Which means you can serve a Green Fairy cocktail to your cranky aunt on Thanksgiving, just for kicks. You know, to see what really happens. Which cocktail? For starters you need to decide which book, as three new absinthe cocktail books were released this year. We all could use an absinthe cocktail book (a 100-year absence makes improvising a bit tricky), but we really don't need three.

Turn the page for our preferred book pick and a cocktail recipe that promises a "Thai hallucination." We're doing our best not to imagine exactly what that means.

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Speakeasy, a new cocktail book by Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric, is the story of a couple of bartenders in New York City circa 1998 (in Twitter time, the Stone Ages) who vowed to save Happy Hour with a properly mixed martini. It was a time, the authors say in the Introduction, when "New York was an exciting city with an air of perpetual adolescence." Until September 11, 2001.

Kosmas and Zaric recount how nightlife virtually disappeared as bars that used to stay open until 4 a.m. closed their doors by midnight. Swanky restaurant bars in the devastated city closed even earlier. "New York's restaurant employees were the ones most affected by this," they continue. "Our income became inconsistent, and there were few operations to go out after a hard night's work." And so they vowed to open an employee-owned cocktail lounge. In December of 2004, Employees Only opened its doors.

Which gets us to their first book, Speakeasy, a tightly packed, pretty little number with 160 pages of "classic cocktails re-imagined" according to the subtitle. Cocktails that are practical yet inspired enough (but not too much) that you'll actually want to make them.

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The summer solstice may officially mark the first day of summer, but Squid Ink prefers to go by the Memorial Day mantra. Translation: it is now unofficially time to pull out the recently released Mr. Boston Summer Cocktails book.

Just what we need, one more strawberry daiquiri cocktail book, right? That's what we thought. But don't step away from your blender just yet. Despite the perky turquoise pool-party cover, this is a serious (OK, serious enough) cocktail book published under the Mr. Boston label (formerly known as Old Mr. Boston, the post-Prohibition Boston distillery that first published its now infamous red and black pocket-sized booze bible in 1935).

The editors of this new summer edition are Anthony Giglio, a beverage journalist, and Jim Meehan, he of PDT New York fame. Among the dozens of contributors are cocktailians Vincenzo Marianella of Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica and Dale DeGroff, a.k.a. King of the Cocktail.

Curiously, we'll never know who came up with that Botticelli cocktail (grapefruit juice, honey, Aperol, vodka, Prosecco, grapefruit twist), as the cocktail creators are simply listed en masse in the front of the book, not on each recipe page. It makes rooting for your hometown favorite a bit difficult. Or you could look at it as half the fun, a sort of match-the-cocktail-with-the-mixologist party game.

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Japanese Cocktails by Kuri Kato is a curious new cocktail book that we sort of love, and like many "sponsored" books, sort of tire of quickly. There are certainly some intriguing recipes like the Aloe Margarita (recipe after the jump) that we can't wait to shake up on one of Santa Monica's dry beaches. Then there are are the disturbing concoctions, such as a Midori Pine Soda (Midori melon liqueur, pineapple juice, club soda), that sound like they were swiped from a circa 1982 sorority house photo album. As far as we're concerned, Midori, in all of its neon green glory, should never make an appearance outside of a frat house.

And then, suddenly it all makes sense. The book is from Chronicle's custom publishing division, or as we have nicknamed it, the Have Cash, Will Sell division. Custom books are essentially those that have some sort of sponsorship behind them, in this case, Suntory International, the Japanese mega-corporation that makes -- you guessed it -- Midori (an unfortunate fact that muddies their reputation as an excellent producer of single malt Japanese whiskey, including the Yamazaki line of single malts, of which we're particularly fond).

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