I watched a video by Philip Duff on the history of gin – is gin the British interpretation of Dutch genever? Or does it come from a more or less independent distilling tradition since British spirits were usually based on a neutral base distillate?
I watched a seminar by Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller that claims independence and wrote about that here.
Phil Duff adds some new information about the historical use of botanics in genever and on Dutch distilling styles.
Duff cites a couple key pieces of information:
The most popular style of distillation in Holland was not distilling a beer mash with botanicals one single time [which leads some to the conclusion that gin, based on a neutral spirit base, was born independently of Holland] but 2 distillations then a third with botanicals, which is essentially how gin is made.
The Distiller of London contains a recipe that looks like gin but is more of an expensive medicinal liqueur, and a book published after it to "correct the mistakes" in it says differently
And thus he concludes basically that gin was invented in England after column distillation comes on boaord in the early 1800s, but it's a direct line of invention from Dutch distilling/genever.
Click the link above for Jared/Anistatia's first video, then watch Phil's video below.
This year I read more than 40 books, mostly about drinks. My top five favorites are below. This list is not actually the best drink books of the year, but my favorites. (And my favorite technically came out in 2022.) I wrote the title for SEO!
What I want out of drink books is new information or information presented in a new way. I don't need cocktail recipes so recipe books only really appeal to me when they present new techniques.
And if I haven't chosen your book or your favorite here, just assume I haven't read it yet. You make great choices too!
Camper's Favorite Books of 2023
5. Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks–a Cool History of a Hot Commodity by Amy Brady [Amazon] [bookshop]
Amy Brady's book about the cultural history of ice was a perfect pairing to my how-to book on ice cubes, coming out just a month after my own. This has the history of "Ice King" Frederic Tudor, plus how ice fundamentally changed America in numerous ways from food and drink to sports and travel.
4. How to Taste: A Guide to Discovering Flavor and Savoring Life by Mandy Naglich [amazon] [bookshop]
It's mostly about tasting beer, wine, and spirits but it's a book about tasting everything from cheese to chocolate to honey, and approaching it like a professional taster. There are tips of developing your palate and tons of interviews with professionals in many different specialties. It makes me want to host tasting parties for everything.
3. Tropical Standard: Cocktail Techniques & Reinvented Recipes by Ben Schaffer and Garret Richard [amazon] [bookshop]
This is the only recipe book on my list, because it introduces new techniques to old drinks. Tropical Standard will probably be known as a book of tiki cocktail recipes made with modern techniques like clarification and isolated acids from Liquid Intelligence, but many of the drinks include no such razzle dazzle: It is really a book on raising the standard of tropical cocktails, optimizing them with everything we've learned in the decades since they were first invented.
2. A Field Guide to Tequila: What It Is, Where It’s From, and How to Taste It by Clayton J. Szczech [amazon] [bookshop]
The title and cover copy really undersell it: This is the tequila book the world needs. About half the book is about the production of tequila and the historical circumstances and sometimes-ridiculous regulations that lead to it being made that way. Tequila is a moving target in many ways, but Szczech has done a great job at nailing the parameters that make it what it is, along with highlighting some of the largest and most traditional players in the category. This is now the first book I recommend about the category.
1. Modern Caribbean Rum by Matt Pietrek and Carrie Smith [buy]
This came out at the end of 2022 but I read it – all 850 pages of it – this year. And it seems like it was written just for me. I am a production nerd and want to know all the ingredients, equipment, and regulations that go into making something and how those things impact how something tastes. Here we get the information on the specific stills- down to the manufacturer- used at every distillery, plus that level of detail about everything from every producer in the covered region. It's a lot, and I like it. So it is all of that wrapped up in a huge heavy package with terrific photos and design – a pleasure to flip through too.
Super Bonus!
The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spheres, and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts by Camper English [amazon] [bookshop]
Okay I lied again. Those weren't my top five favorite books of 2023. They're the top 5 books of 2023 that I didn't write. My favorite book of 2023 is The Ice Book, by me!
Learn to make very good ice and shape it into all sorts of amazing cubes, spheres, blinged-out diamonds, and more. I hope you'll pick up a copy if you haven't already.
In a nice coincidence, right after reading Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice that I reviewed here, [amazon][bookshop] my other book club chose High on the Hog [amazon] [bookshop] as their pick for the month.
I just finished up the book (haven't seen the Netflix series yet but will watch next month- having only heard the title, I thought both were cookbooks/cooking shows instead of history book/show) and it's super interesting.
One thing I noticed in Juke Joints was how often the author mentioned caterers and their recipes for food and drink. In reading lots of cocktail history I hadn't come across caterers that I can recall. So I made a mental note of it.
In High on the Hog, the author explains a little better why caterers were often Black businesses- coming off of domestic work skills and training but lacking the capital to open restaurants.
It was nice to have a question and then get it answered in the next book.
Here are a couple of pages from High on the Hog in which I got my answers. It's worth reading High on the Hog in full though – it looks like the overlapping history of food and Black history in America.
To help drinkers in their sober curious exploration, White Claw is introducing a new way of drinking. Introducing White Claw 0% Alcohol – a new, non-alcoholic premium seltzer boasting the complex taste and feel of a real drink. Made from ultra-refined seltzer and blended with iconic flavors and hydrating electrolytes, White Claw 0% Alcohol is a new way to drink.
And now have nonalcoholic alcoholic sparkling iced tea!
Today, Loverboy announced their first-ever non-alcoholic take on the brand’s top-rated sparkling hard teas: Non-Alcoholic White Tea Peach and Non-Alcoholic Lemon Iced Tea. Perfect for dry January, mocktail, and healthier resolutions stories, Loverboy is bringing the taste without the buzz to redefine how you imbibe – boasting full flavor, zero sugar, and only 10 calories per can.
Now, my math is a little rusty, but I think it goes something like:
This is a video about "ice spikes" that form in the freezer, and as explained it does so due to the expansion of water when it freezes.
He is talking about ice forming in a standard ice cube tray but those of us who make clear ice cubes in trays know this phenomenon as the "mystery pillar" – one cube (or sometimes two) pops up and starts forming upward out of a tray suspended atop an insulated cooler.
Interestingly in this video the host cites three factors that help ice spikes to form: distilled water, warm freezing temperatures, and a fan blowing on the surface. Well in the case of directional freezing, the water freezes out impurities so that the ice near the surface is basically frozen distilled water; the cooler impacts the rate of freezing; and fans are usually in the way.
In the case of the directional freezing system, rather than spikes forming above the surface, we usually get whole cubes popping up. My theory is that the "ice spike" phenomenon is happening not on the surface of the ice, but through the bottom hole in the tray – pushing the entire cube up from the bottom. Often the new ice forming does up around the sides, so you get something like looks like a cupcake topping on your cube. (Other times it seems the new ice forms below and pushes the whole cube up.)
In any case, I think the "mystery pillar" is the same thing as "ice spikes" as it just makes sense.
I recently read the 2012 book Drinking Water: A History by James Salzman, in preparation for my forthcoming water classes I'm teaching in San Francisco.
It is about the history of public and private drinking water and bottled water, from olden times until recent times. From researching Doctors and Distillers I already knew a lot of information in this book, but it deepened my understanding of some things.
Here are some facts I picked up.
Roman Lead Poisoning
You know how people theorize lead poisoning might have killed off the Roman Empire? Well if so, the lead likely didn't come from the lead pipes, even though those were used to carry water- in part because they became calcified and the water wouldn't touch the lead. But they did boil fermented grape juice into a syrup called sapa for sweetening foods and beverages, since they didn't have sugar yet. The boiling was often done in lead pots, and it was this source of lead poisoning that could have led to problems.
p. 71
Montezuma's Revenge
Traveller's belly was known by different names in different parts of the world. Montezuma's Revenge, Delhi Belly, Mummy Tummy (Egypt), and Karachi Crouch (Pakistan). It's not neccesarily that the water is so bad, it's that you're not used to it.
p. 76
Chlorinated Water
Chlorinated Water dates to 1902 – the first municipality to use it was Middelkerke, Belgium. In 1908 Jersey City became the first city in the US to do so for an entire city.
Drinking Fountains
Public drinking fountains were often sponsored as charity works by pro-Temperance groups, both in England in the 1800s and in the US leading up to Prohibition. They were provided as free alternate sources to beer, which was the more common form of hydration before modern sanitation. Still, many public drinking fountains had a community cup chained to them for drinking! A lot of people got sick from the cups. The modern "bubbler" with water that shoots out so that you don't need a cup was an answer to the communal cup.
Some early drinking fountains in the US had space to add 20 pound blocks of ice to chill the water.
Branded Water
The first branded bottled waters were from holy wells during the era of European religious pilgrimages and visits to holy sights and relics. One could purchase flasks that were branded with the source. Later on, healing mineral waters became the branded bottled waters.
p 168
Modern Bottled Water Brand Dates
Poland Spring 1845
Vittel 1855
Perrier 1863
Deer Park 1873
Arrowhead 1894
p 171
Bottled Tap Water
For Dasani and Aquafina, "Coke and Pepsi take tap water; run it through a series of fine filters to remover minerals and bacteria, ultraviolet and ozonation treatments to kill any remaining organisms, and reverse osmosis to remove any remaining materials; and then add minerals back in because all the taste has been removed."
p 178
US FDA Regulated Terminology
I don't think I knew that certain terms on bottled water bottles are regulated. I verified on the FDA website:
The agency classifies some bottled water by its origin. Here are four of those classifications:
Artesian well water. This water is collected from a well that taps an aquifer—layers of porous rock, sand, and earth that contain water—which is under pressure from surrounding upper layers of rock or clay. When tapped, the pressure in the aquifer, commonly called artesian pressure, pushes the water above the level of the aquifer, sometimes to the surface. Other means may be used to help bring the water to the surface.
Mineral water. This water comes from an underground source and contains at least 250 parts per million total dissolved solids. Minerals and trace elements must come from the source of the underground water. They cannot be added later.
Spring water. Derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface, this water must be collected only at the spring or through a borehole that taps the underground formation feeding the spring. If some external force is used to collect the water through a borehole, the water must have the same composition and quality as the water that naturally flows to the surface.
Well water. This is water from a hole bored or drilled into the ground, which taps into an aquifer.
Monitoring Water
“One thing is certain: Bottled water is less stringently regulated than tap water.” Bottled water isn't necessarily more "pure" or safe than tap water. It certainly can be though.
There are lots of different ice tools you could buy for yourself and others, but when someone I know moves house I tend to buy them a starter pack that takes up the least amount of space in their freezer with a lot of value in icy awesomeness.
I was interviewed for this short segment on CBS news, which went out to their various affiliate stations. The first person who told me they saw it was actually in Hawaii.
Want to give yourself (or, I suppose, somebody else) some clear ice tools for the most hands-on experience? Skip the commercial trays that make good finished ice and pick up this stuff instead.
I watched a video by Philip Duff on the history of gin – is gin the British interpretation of Dutch genever? Or does it come from a more or less independent distilling tradition since British spirits were usually based on a neutral base distillate? 
