Alcademics

The enclosed book descriptions are from the publishers.

The Beer Bible by Jeff Alworth

It’s finally here—the comprehensive, authoritative book that does for beer what The Wine Bible does for wine. Written by an expert from the West Coast, where America’s craft beer movement got its start, The Beer Bible is the ultimate reader- and drinker-friendly guide to all the world’s beers.

No other book of this depth and scope approaches the subject of beer in the same way that beer lovers do—by style, just as a perfect pub menu is organized—and gets right to the pleasure of discovery, knowledge, and connoisseurship. Divided into four major families—ales, lagers, wheat beers, and tart and wild ales—there’s everything a beer drinker wants to know about the hundreds of different authentic types of brews, from bitters, bocks, and IPAs to weisses, milk stouts, lambics, and more. Each style is a chapter unto itself, delving into origins, ingredients, description and characteristics, substyles, and tasting notes, and ending with a recommended list of the beers to know in each category. Hip infographics throughout make the explanation of beer’s flavors, brewing methods, ingredients, labeling, serving, and more as immediate as it is lively.

The book is written for passionate beginners, who will love its “if you like X, try Y” feature; for intermediate beer lovers eager to go deeper; and for true geeks, who will find new information on every page. History, romance, the art of tasting, backstories and anecdotes, appropriate glassware, bitterness units, mouthfeel, and more—it’s all here. Plus a primer on pairing beer and food using the three Cs— complement, contrast, or cut. It’s the book that every beer lover will read with pleasure, and use with even more. 

COCKTAIL NOIR: From Gangsters and Gin Joints to Gumshoes and Gimlets by Scott Deitche

Deitche sheds new light on history's most memorable gangsters, noir characters, and the writers who created them at the nexus of their favorite cocktails in his latest book. Cocktail recipes punctuate the narrative along with 100 distinctive photographs of the famous and infamous people and places that have consumed and served up these libations. Everything from Mickey Spillane's humble Miller Lite, a choice mirrored by his famous noir character Mike Hammer, to Richard Cass's noir bartender Elder Darrow's complex, multi-layered pousse-café cocktail, with a recipe for real-life gangster Meyer Lansky's own Meyer Lansky Sour in between is covered in this homage to the cocktail and the people and characters who influenced its evolution.

Hidden Scents: The Language of Smell in the Age of Approximation by Allen Barkkume 

Bourbon Curious: A Simple Tasting Guide for the Savvy Drinker by Fred Minnick

Bourbon Curious: A Simple Tasting Guide for the Savvy Drinker, award-winning whiskey writer and Wall Street Journal-best-selling author Fred Minnick debunks bourbon myths, provides distillery production methods (such as recipes and barrel-entry proofs!) and creates an easy-to-read interactive tasting journey that helps you select bourbons based on flavor preferences and bourbon styles.

Using the same tasting principles he offers in his Kentucky Derby Museum classes and as a judge at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Minnick's Bourbon Curious cuts to the chase, dismissing brand marketing and judging what's inside the bottle.

The Mason Jar Cocktail Companion by Shane Carley

More than 125 creative drink recipes tailor-made for the rustic charm of a mason jar!

Trying new and unique cocktail recipes is always fun, but the pretense that goes with it can be overwhelming. What’s the difference between a highball glass and a Collins glass? How about a martini glass and a cocktail glass? And do you really need to buy an Old Fashioned glass if you’re never going to drink an Old Fashioned? The Mason Jar Cocktail Companion combines the best aspects of your favorite creative cocktails with the rustic simplicity of the mason jar. Featuring old favorites like the Tequila Sunrise and Bloody Mary alongside new and exciting mixes such as the Whiskey Sunset and Renegade Lemonade, the Mason Jar Cocktail Companion serves as the perfect cocktail guide for both novices and experienced mixologists alike! With tips for ways to garnish and serve your drinks with style, and a variety of virgin drink recipes for younger party guests and expecting moms, get ready to host the ultimate patio party with the help of The Mason Jar Cocktail Companion.

Gin: The Manual by Dave Broom 

In recent years, gin has shed its old-fashioned image and been reborn as a hot and hip spirit. The number of brands grows every day and bartenders - and consumers - are now beginning to re-examine gin as a quality base spirit for drinks both simple and complex.

Now, with more brands available than ever before, it is the time to set out what makes gin special, what its flavors are and how to get the most out of the brands you buy. With this book as your guide, discover: How gin is made, What a botanical is and how they impact a gin's flavor, What the difference between Dutch, London, Scottish, Spanish and American gins is, How you drink them to maximize your pleasure, Whether there is life beyond the gin & tonic (yes!)

The body of the book covers 120 gins which Dave has tested four ways - with tonic, with lemonade, in a negroni and in a martini - and then scored. In addition, each gin is categorized according to an ingenious flavor camp system, which highlights its core properties and allows you to understand how you can best drink it, and therefore enjoy it.

The Cocktail Chronicles: Navigating the Cocktail Renaissance with Jigger, Shaker & Glass by Paul Clarke  

Not every revolution requires an insurrection, and not every renaissance begins in salons, galleries or cloistered chambers. The cocktail seemed an unlikely candidate to start either a revolution or a renaissance, but somehow over the past decade, it has managed to become the center of both. Today the cocktail is celebrated at week-long conferences and festivals that draw thousands. Taking cues from a wider culinary movement that’s been building steam for decades, craft-cocktail bars (and the bartenders and writers who inhabit them) are digging in the depths of the drink’s rich history and apply these fresh-taught lessons to new drinks, appropriating techniques and skills acquired everywhere from centuries-old handbooks. However, as fascinating as today’s artisan-driven or tech-savvy craft-cocktail bars can be, there’s also a need for cocktail comfort food―for exciting drinks that have the benefit of being delicious, and that can be easily prepared by non-professionals.

From Paul Clarke, the 2014 Best Cocktail & Spirits Writer and founder of the groundbreaking spirits blog, The Cocktail Chronicles, comes an approachable guide to the cocktail renaissance thus far and―as the name implies―a chronicle of the cocktails that have come along the way. The Cocktail Chronicles is not a lab manual for taking the cocktail experience to a molecular level; nor is it an historical monograph tracing the details of our forebears as they developed and mixed the drinks we enjoy today. Instead, The Cocktail Chronicles is a collection of approachable, and easily replicable drinks that all share the same thing: a common deliciousness and a role -- both big and small -- in the ongoing and thriving cocktail renaissance.

This collection of expertly curated recipes represent a photo album of sorts―snapshots of people encountered over the years, with some close friends and family members depicted alongside a few dimly remembered strangers. The Cocktail Chronicles believes cocktails should be fun: it doesn’t demand the purchase of a new product for every recipe or require hours spent preparing a single ingredient -- that is a sure way to suck the joy right out of it. Life is complicated―a good drink doesn't have to be. To that end, The Cocktail Chronicles has you covered.

Vermouth: The Revival of the Spirit That Created America’s Cocktail Culture by Adam Ford

You may think of vermouth as an accessory to classic cocktails like the Manhattan and Martini—that is, if you think about it at all. But for almost a century, vermouth was actually the primary ingredient of these two drinks, as well as a prized aperitif in its own right. And today, after decades of obscurity, vermouth is finally making a comeback. “It's something of a surprise to see how quickly vermouth's fortunes have changed,” says Paul Clarke, executive editor of Imbibe magazine, and author of The Cocktail Chronicles. “But today's bartenders and discerning drinkers are thirstier for vermouth than perhaps ever before.”

Adam Ford, one of the first champions of modern vermouth, presents the ultimate history of this storied beverage and guide to its resurgence. Vermouth is one part history and one part recipe book—a loving homage to the spirit that first elevated the American cocktail. Amy Zavatto, author of Architecture of the Cocktail, says, “"Adam Ford has quickly become one of the most recognizable names and leading expert on vermouth's storied history, and perhaps America’s most passionate speaker on its significance both historical and in today’s modern cocktail culture.”

Mixologists, history buffs, and casual sippers, alike, will appreciate the blend of fact and myth that surrounds this ancient beverage, and enjoy recreating classic drinks like the original Manhattan as well as innovative new vermouth-forward recipes—over 40 in all.

About the Author:  Adam Ford, a lawyer by profession, is the founder of Atsby New York Vermouth. In the process of researching the perfect combination of botanicals for his product, he discovered the long-forgotten history of what was once America’s most glamourous spirit, and so this book was born. Ford lives in New York City and produces his vermouth on the North Fork of Long Island.

Drinking the Devil's Acre: A Love Letter from San Francisco and her Cocktails by Duggan McDonnell

Drinking the Devil's Acre: A Love Letter From San Francisco & Her Cocktails is a smart, delightful mix of barman's memoir and literary journalism, with layers of spirited history and liquid wisdom. A tender tale of love for delicious drink, and for one's city, a book for anyone with a passion for history, cocktails, San Francisco, and the wanderlust of travel.

The Devil's Acre was a single, saloon-soaked block within the notorious Barbary Coast of old San Francisco. It was the wickedest, wildest place in the whole wide world -- not where you went to whet your whistle. But, just a few short blocks away, marbled drinking palaces reigned and civilization was sung as cocktails were shaken in tin and served in copper mugs. The high art of the cocktail lived at the edge of the West's most electrifying nightlife. Several generations later, San Francisco boasts this very same culture with the farm-to-glass movement is at its height. 

Twenty-five iconic cocktail recipes made famous by the City by the Bay--from the legendary Pisco Punch, the Mai Tai, and Irish Coffee, the rediscovery of the Gold Rush-era Sazerac and the whimsical Lemon Drop--are accompanied by an additional 45 recipes and McDonnell's 'Bartender's Secret Formulas,' including contemporary San Francisco classics as the Revolver and La Perla. Every chapter is guaranteed to keep the pages turning, the party going and your spirits flowing.

Discovering the New York Craft Spirits Boom by Heather D. Dolland

By first introducing a unique take on dining, All The Tastes of New York, now introduces us to the new movement, "Farm to Glass" through new book, Discovering the New York Craft Spirits Boom.

Discovering The New York Craft Spirits Boom", chronicles the lives of 30 Craft Distillers throughout New York State, from Brooklyn to the Finger Lakes. Distillers that distill spirits such as Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin, Vodka and much more! Each story is as varied and unique as the brands that they create.

It is an intimate look into their struggles and triumphs, and their decisions to be embark upon this spirited journey! A journey that would not have been possible without the changing of laws and regulations that made distilling in New York once again legal since the days of Prohibition. This being championed by a governor who has cast himself as "the most booze-friendly chief executive" in state history.

Tiki Drinks: Tropical Cocktails for the Modern Bar  by Robert Sharp and Nicole Weston 

Try a tiki―a sweet, fruity blast from the past, updated for modern tastes

Tiki cocktails are a tasty mid-twentieth-century American classic, but their popularity suffered when syrupy drink mixes hit the scene. Now it's time to welcome them back: Food blogger Nicole Weston and mixologist Robert Sharp have brought back the fresh taste of tiki drinks, banishing the artificial syrupy sweetness of mixes for fresh fruit juices, high-quality spirits, and homemade syrups. They offer a taste of the past with traditional recipes that honor the flavors of the Caribbean, South Pacific, and the Hawaiian Islands that first inspired the tiki cocktail. Including original recipes inspired by Asian and South American flavors, Tiki Drinks is a hybrid of the old and the new; the concept may be vintage but the drinks are fresh. Drinks include delicious updates of Jamaican Milk punch using fresh cream of coconut, Siren's Elixir with fresh-squeezed lemon and guava juice, and a Hawaiian Queen Bee with locally sourced honey and garnished with juicy, fresh-cut pineapple. Of course, what's a tiki drink book without a little Hawaiian lore and style? Tiki Drinks has that, and much more.

Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey by Reid Mitenbuler 

Unraveling the many myths and misconceptions surrounding America’s most iconic spirit, Bourbon Empire traces a history that spans frontier rebellion, Gilded Age corruption, and the magic of Madison Avenue. Whiskey has profoundly influenced America’s political, economic, and cultural destiny, just as those same factors have inspired the evolution and unique flavor of the whiskey itself.

Taking readers behind the curtain of an enchanting—and sometimes exasperating—industry, the work of writer Reid Mitenbuler crackles with attitude and commentary about taste, choice, and history. Few products better embody the United States, or American business, than bourbon.

A tale of innovation, success, downfall, and resurrection, Bourbon Empire is an exploration of the spirit in all its unique forms, creating an indelible portrait of both bourbon and the people who make it.