Books for Bartenders

The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler

I love this book. If I had to pick one book that I considered to be my bible (for the bar at least) it would be this one. I love everything from the cover to the enticing images to the recipes for everything from grenadine and house orange bitters to Spanish Coffee and Queen's Park Swizzles.

It's insightful and well laid out. If you want to know how to make grenadine rather than reaching for sickly sweet, flavourless syrups from the shelf, head for this book, if you want to know how to make tonic water that will knock the socks off anything you could pick up in the supermarket (apart from Fever Tree, I'm not sure anything could beat Fever Tree), head for this book, if you want to know how to make ginger ale... you got it... it's here in this book. from the House Orange Bitters recipe you'll be well on your way for making any bitters you can think of, and there are cocktails throughout the books that utilise the wonderful mixers and concoctions you can make going through.

One problem with the book is that I'm 95% sure Jeffrey is based in America, and some of the ingredients aren't so easy to get hold of here in the UK (or at least in Norwich), but that is considerably more a problem with my sources than it is with the book.

Craft Cocktails at Home by Kevin Liu

My inner scientist loves the book. If you're not remotely into *how* cocktails work you might want to give it a miss, and head for something that's purely a book of recipes, but it's a great technical guide for putting cocktails together and why ingredients interact in the way they do. There are a number of recipes in there that I am dying to try and it gives a great insight into the different effects on drinks of staring versus shaking, and the age of citrus juices.

I wouldn't say it's the first book I'headed to if I need a recipe despite there being a number of recipes in the book, but if I need reminding of the fundamentals and science behind what I'm doing it's the first book I grab and well worth a space on my shelf. It's not however what I'd call a beginner friendly book.

The Drunken Botanist

This is a really interesting book. It focuses as one might expect from the name on the plant ingredients found in spirits, looking at the plants history of usage in cocktails, and there are a few botanicals that although included are heavily advised against such as Opium Poppies.

My inner plant geek wants to love it but it's missing... something. I'm glad that I've read it, or more browsed through it, and perhaps therein lays the problem? But it hasn't captured my interest in quite the way that some of the other gardening or alcohol books have. That said I can see it having it's uses. I expect that f you're distilling gin, this book would probably be invaluable. So I'm not saying it's a bad book, just that I don't think it's got the wow factor for me.

#Bartending