Here are 100 books that Esquires Handbook for Hosts fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been writing about cocktails and spirits for over a decade, often in collaboration with my mixologist husband and co-author, John McCarthy. Our mission is to create delicious, practical cocktail recipes for the home bartender. There are a number of cocktail books out there, but they usually fall into two camps. Novelty books, which are often silly and untested. Or books written by professionals, for professionals, impractical if you don’t have a centrifuge, dehydrator, and 300-odd liqueurs in your home bar. What about the vast middle ground–people who love cocktails, want to make them at home, and learn something while they’re sipping? We believe in finding the best books for them.
Without a doubt, David Wondrich is the preeminent cocktail historian of our time. If that doesn’t sound like a real thing…well, just start reading his work.
No one else has his mastery of our drinking history or a gift for communicating all its twists and turns. Every book he’s written is a great read, but this book is the best jumping-off point, following the story of mid-19th-century bartender Jerry Thomas with colorful tales and excellent recipes.
The newly updated edition of David Wondrich’s definitive guide to classic American cocktails.
Cocktail writer and historian David Wondrich presents the colorful, little-known history of classic American drinks--and the ultimate mixologist's guide--in this engaging homage to Jerry Thomas, father of the American bar.
Wondrich reveals never-before-published details and stories about this larger-than-life nineteenth-century figure, along with definitive recipes for more than 100 punches, cocktails, sours, fizzes, toddies, slings, and other essential drinks, along with detailed historical and mixological notes.
The first edition, published in 2007, won a James Beard Award. Now updated with newly discovered recipes and historical information,…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I was a clothing designer in NYC in a previous life. I would cram friends into my small apartment and have dinner parties whenever I could. I love food, cooking, and entertaining. Food is a way to show love, but for me, cooking was also a way to flex my creative muscle outside a creatively and emotionally draining industry. For years I mused about how to pivot into the food industry without being a classically trained chef. Upon being laid off in 2020 the door was finally opened for me to move on a begin a career in food styling and photography. Once Upon a Rind in Hollywood is my first cookbook.
This no-frills cocktail handbook has been hailed the “Most-read cocktail expert around” for a good reason.
Regan engagingly romanticizes cocktail and drinking culture. He details the history of specific cocktails, includes theories of how certain drinks came about and adds quotes about drinking from notable figures.
He makes you want to try drinks you have yet to try. He also muses about the philosophy of being a bartender and what it takes to be a good bartender.
Although the author makes it a humorous and fun read, the book is much more. It is a thoughtfully laid-out handbook for creating classic cocktails. Of course, one can search for a recipe by cocktail name.
But the book includes a great glossary, and charts by the family of cocktail, making it easy to be like; it’s been a long day, and we have some leftover rye and lemons in the fridge. What…
A thoroughly updated edition of the 2003 classic that home and professional bartenders alike refer to as their cocktail bible.
Gary Regan, the "most-read cocktail expert around" (Imbibe), has revised his original tome for the 15th anniversary with new material: many more cocktail recipes—including smart revisions to the originals—and fascinating information on the drink making revival that has popped up in the past decade, confirming once again that this is the only cocktail reference you need.
A prolific writer on all things cocktails, Gary Regan and his books have been a huge influence on mixologists and bartenders in America. This…
I’ve been writing about cocktails and spirits for over a decade, often in collaboration with my mixologist husband and co-author, John McCarthy. Our mission is to create delicious, practical cocktail recipes for the home bartender. There are a number of cocktail books out there, but they usually fall into two camps. Novelty books, which are often silly and untested. Or books written by professionals, for professionals, impractical if you don’t have a centrifuge, dehydrator, and 300-odd liqueurs in your home bar. What about the vast middle ground–people who love cocktails, want to make them at home, and learn something while they’re sipping? We believe in finding the best books for them.
Most reference books aren’t also entertaining reads. But this book manages to be both.
Written in 1948, it’s an in-depth guide to the taxonomy of classic cocktails–helping you distinguish your Sours from your Daisies–but written with a sense of humor and levity that other books lack. For a look into mid-century American cocktail culture, one of the cocktail world’s true golden ages, this is as good as it gets.
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
Cas Oh is a drinks industry veteran and author of the award-winning book CO Specs: Recipes & Histories of Classic Cocktails. CO Specs is the product of Cas Oh’s 20+ years behind the bar, mixing drinks, managing teams, and training staff in such notable venues as The Groucho Club and the Hospital Club. Most recently Oh was running the bars at the iconic Ivy Club in London's West End, where he held the tiller for a decade before leaving to finalise the manuscript for CO Specs. Known for his obsessive approach to research and training, his book is the 'one-stop shop' he always wished he'd had.
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.
Nightclubs and country clubs figured in my father’s business distributing snack foods in post-WWII “Steel City,” Pittsburgh, where I was served “Shirley Temple” cocktails in martini glasses alongside my parents’ Manhattans. (To my five- and six-year-old eye, the trophy was the maraschino cherry.) Decades later, teaching American literature in the university, my interest deepened in Jack London’s writing, and my book on him demanded close attention to the history of US cocktails and other drinks. London’s memoir, John Barleycorn, frankly details his drinking and eventual capture by alcohol. As a scholar-researcher, I was “captured” by the backstory of US cocktail culture.
Order a Martini (straight up, or with ice chiming against the glass), then settle with this charming book and the “quintessential cocktail” that merits its own chapter in the imbiber’s US history tour. Grimes wears learning lightly while pointing out the cultural vagaries over four centuries of pleasurable distillation, brewing, and fermentation. Who knew the American Revolution was first fomented in 1700s village taverns? Or that the familiar Gilded Age “Bronx” (named by the Waldorf-Astoria’s master mixologist) was the very first cocktail to use fruit juice?
Author Grimes chides the 1960s Yuppies (a.k.a. young urban professionals) for purist insistence on “imported beer” and “the rarest of single-malt Scotches,” but concludes the country and the cocktail survived and are all the better for it. He gets no argument from me!
The cocktail is as old as the nation that invented it, yet until this entertaining and authoritative account, its story had never been fully told. William Grimes traces the evolution of American drink from the anything-goes concoctions of the Colonial era to the frozen margarita, spiking his meticulously researched narrative with arresting details, odd facts, and colorful figures.
The book includes about one hundred recipes--half of them new for this edition--for both classics and innovations.
Nightclubs and country clubs figured in my father’s business distributing snack foods in post-WWII “Steel City,” Pittsburgh, where I was served “Shirley Temple” cocktails in martini glasses alongside my parents’ Manhattans. (To my five- and six-year-old eye, the trophy was the maraschino cherry.) Decades later, teaching American literature in the university, my interest deepened in Jack London’s writing, and my book on him demanded close attention to the history of US cocktails and other drinks. London’s memoir, John Barleycorn, frankly details his drinking and eventual capture by alcohol. As a scholar-researcher, I was “captured” by the backstory of US cocktail culture.
Whiskeys rule, but the modern bar dare not lack a battery of bitters that extend beyond from the familiar Angostura and Peychaud’s. By the “dash,” cocktails demand bitters which, all too often, appear to be an afterthought. (Yet my New Orleans-born Sazerac cocktail would taste “off” without Peychaud’s and my favorite Old Fashioned unthinkable without two dashes of time-honored Angostura.)
Bitters inducts us into the realm of these botanical “drugs” distilled from flowers, spices, citrus peels, tree bark—all originally dispensed in apothecary shops as cures for digestive woes, stomach troubles, even gout. By the Gilded Age, bitters transited to the bar under brands sounding sketchy (e.g. Flint’s Quaker Bitters), but Bitters opens a new botanical wonderland for my armchair imagining, and for others’ venturesome do-it-yourself distillation. Key Lime Bitters, anyone?
Gone are the days when a lonely bottle of Angostura bitters held court behind the bar. A cocktail renaissance has swept across the country, inspiring in bartenders and their thirsty patrons a new fascination with the ingredients, techniques, and traditions that make the American cocktail so special. And few ingredients have as rich a history or serve as fundamental a role in our beverage heritage as bitters.
Author and bitters enthusiast Brad Thomas Parsons traces the history of the world’s most storied elixir, from its earliest “snake oil” days to its near evaporation after Prohibition to its ascension as…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
I have been a journalist for over a decade, most frequently writing on the subjects of spirits, cocktails, and drinking culture for such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Playboy, and VinePair. I have written 12 books—6 of them on booze—my latest of which is Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits.
So often, booze history has not been carefully written down, and Simonson wanted to ensure that would not be the case when it came to the cocktail renaissance that kicked off in the early 21st century.
Chapter by chapter, he introduces us to the players—bartenders, bar owners, producers, and reps—along with the bars that reinvigorated a nearly-dead American tradition of Martinis, Manhattans, Margaritas, and many more drinks that are now, thanks to them, ubiquitous everywhere on the globe.
A narrative history of the craft cocktail renaissance, written by a New York Times cocktail writer and one of the foremost experts on the subject.
A Proper Drink is the first-ever book to tell the full, unflinching story of the contemporary craft cocktail revival. Award-winning writer Robert Simonson interviewed more than 200 key players from around the world, and the result is a rollicking (if slightly tipsy) story of the characters—bars, bartenders, patrons, and visionaries—who in the last 25 years have changed the course of modern drink-making. The book also features a curated list of about 40 cocktails—25 modern classics,…
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.
Mezcal is one of the fastest-growing spirits categories, and I love this smoky-tasting drink that's mostly made in small batches by one-man (or increasingly one-woman) distilleries around Mexico.
Author Emma Janzen loves it and is curious about it so much that she sets off on a journey around Mexico to meet the makers, and the bartenders who are turning mezcal into cocktails. I'm not jealous of her journey at all! The journey produced a handsome book with wonderful photos, and it's a book that has both style and substance.
What I like about it is that she gets out and meets people, and introduces the reader to their lives, whether it be cool mixologists in Oaxaca City or mezcal makers in the middle of nowhere. If you like mezcal, it's a must-read.
In Mezcal, two-time James Beard Award–winning author Emma Janzen explores what sets this cousin of tequila apart from the rest of the pack.
*Nominated for the 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award in the Beverage category*
Produced in Mexico for centuries but little known elsewhere until recent years, mezcal has captured the imagination of spirits enthusiasts with its astonishing complexities. And while big liquor is beginning to jump aboard the bandwagon, most mezcal is still artisanal in nature, produced using small-batch techniques handed down for generations, often with agave plants harvested in the wild.
I’ve been writing about cocktails and spirits for over a decade, often in collaboration with my mixologist husband and co-author, John McCarthy. Our mission is to create delicious, practical cocktail recipes for the home bartender. There are a number of cocktail books out there, but they usually fall into two camps. Novelty books, which are often silly and untested. Or books written by professionals, for professionals, impractical if you don’t have a centrifuge, dehydrator, and 300-odd liqueurs in your home bar. What about the vast middle ground–people who love cocktails, want to make them at home, and learn something while they’re sipping? We believe in finding the best books for them.
I love the premise of this book. When someone asks us for a cocktail recipe, 90% of the time–or more–it’s because they’re making it for a party. So, an entire book of cocktails already proportioned for a crowd and tested for success when made in bulk just makes sense.
Quite a number of cocktails are actually a pain to make in advance. This book spares you the nuisance of considering those and gets right to the (sophisticated, beautifully crafted) party drinks.
A hip, accessible guide to batch cocktail-making for entertaining, with 65 recipes that can be made hours—or weeks!—ahead of time so that hosts and hostesses have one less thing to worry about as the doorbell rings.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED
As anyone who has hosted a dinner party knows, cocktail hour is the most fun part of the evening for guests—but the most stressful for whomever is in charge of keeping the drinks flowing. The solution, though, is simple: batch it! In this fun collection, Maggie Hoffman offers 65 delicious and creative cocktails…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
As a commercial sociologist who studies drinking cultures by day and a cocktail lover who partakes in those same cultures by night, I have always been fascinated with the rituals and traditions of hospitality. As a child, my parents disliked taking me to restaurants because my attention would always be focused on the other diners rather than whatever was on my plate. Academically, I am fascinated by the social construction of fact and how the documentation of what we understand to be true in science or history can be heavily influenced by such factors as class, gender, and race. It’s putting these two interests together that led me to research and ultimately write a book on how women have been systematically excluded from the historical record of the cocktail.
Alice Lascelle’s Ten Cocktails is not so much a recipe book as it is a musing on the ten drinks that have defined one woman’s personal journey as a drinks journalist. Part travelogue, part memoir, part historical tour, the book explores the author’s own experiences with drinks while diving into their broader social contexts.
The accounts are meaningful, engaging, and surprisingly entertaining. I particularly loved the description of her British parents’ inadequate storage of ice and the woefully poor gin and tonics they served up as a result. An all too familiar scene from my own household growing up - I now understand why I disliked this drink for so long.
In Ten Cocktails, The Times drinks columnist Alice Lascelles uses ten of her favourite cocktails to distil the stories, recipes and tips she has amassed in more than a decade in pursuit of the mixed drink. Join her as she dodges the washing lines of backstreet Havana in search of the perfect Daiquiri, scours the cocktail bars of Tokyo for the world's best ice carvers, harvests juniper in the hills of Umbria, goes sipping Sazeracs in New Orleans and unearths the mixological secrets of The Savoy.
What makes a G&T glow in the dark? Who threw the world's first cocktail…
