Author: Peyton, Jane
Spirits & cocktails
Published on 15 June 2023 by British Library Publishing in the United Kingdom as part of 'the British Library Philosophies' series.
Hardback | 112 pages, 30+ mono illustrations; 30+ mono illustrations
206 x 138 x 14 | 232g
An early description of a cocktail as 'a mix of alcoholic drinkswith flavouring ingredients' does nothing to convey the alchemyand speak-easy glamour of these elaborate drinks. The cocktail's humble beginnings as a medicinal tonic through the inclusion of botanicals into distilled spirits such as gin and whiskey, accelerates with the ingenuity of bartenders who created the 'classics' - the Martini, Manhattan and Old Fashioned - in the nineteenth-century, and in the decadence of the Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties. This book explores the journey that cocktails have made, via China and the Middle East, the Americas and the UK, to arrive at the bespoke menus of today's stylish clubs and bars, complete with descriptions of the myriad ingredients, glassware and paraphernalia that the mixologist has at their disposal.