Category: cocktails
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September 2025 Drink Book Releases
Here are new cocktails and spirits books being released in September 2025. To see all the New Drink Books of 2025, visit this link. Savory and Sweet Shrubs: Tart Mixers for Delicious Cocktails and Mocktails Amazon Bookshop American Whiskey Master Class: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Bourbon, Rye, and Other American Whiskeys Amazon Bookshop The…
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Bartender’s Ketchup is Back on the Menu in SF
I wrote a story for the SFStandard about elderflower liqueur making a huge comeback. It was so popular when the brand St. Germain first launched in 2007 that it was given the nickname “bartender’s ketchup.” It’s so back, but now bartenders are using a wide range of products. Read the story here.
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All of the Olives’ Brine Time to Shine
My latest story for the San Francisco Chronicle is about all the ways bartenders are liquifying olives in their Martinis – in the vermouth, gin, vodka, brine, leaf tinctures, oil-washing everything, and even an “olive turducken.” Here’s a gift link so you can read it.
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How to Stretch a Lime – My Story in the SF Chronicle
I wrote about oleo citrate and super juice for the San Francisco Chronicle. These are techniques for increasing the yield from citrus fruits by eight times or so, using a touch of citric and malic acid powder in a specific way to bump up the flavor and texture of citrus to extend it over a…
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Don’t Drink and Send Telegrams – and Other Advice from 100 Years of Cocktail Etiquette Books
My first story for Food & Wine just went live. I took advice from 95 years of cocktail etiquette books, beginning in 1930 and ending with the publication of How to Be a Better Drinker last week [amazon] [bookshop]. I had fun going through my cocktail book collection to find other etiquette books, including The…
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Esquire’s Best and Worst Cocktails of 1934
Esquire magazine printed an article with the Ten Best Cocktails of 1934 – the year after Prohibition was repealed. They included at the end a list of the Worst cocktails as well. Esquire’s link to the story is here, but it requires a subscription to view. DiffordsGuide has the list of best and…
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The Cocktail is the International Alcoholic Esperanto
Here’s a fun excerpt: The American Mercury 1924-09: Vol 3 Iss 9 CLINICAL NOTESBY GEORGE JEAN NATHAN AND H. L. MENCKEN The cocktail, once observed George Ade, follows the American flag. That was twenty years ago. The flags of all nations today follow the cocktail. Its fame has spread over the globe, and justly. It…
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From Salad in a Glass to Centrifuge: A Cocktail Evolution
This story was originally published on AlcoholProfessor.com. From Salad in a Glass to Centrifuge: A Cocktail Evolution Recently I was thinking about the early years of the craft cocktail renaissance, and how many of the drinks were quite… chunky. And I realized that we can track a lot of the progression in bartending via the…
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Thirty Four New Drink Books for Fall 2024
Update 2: Now this list is up to 34 books Update 1: Detailed reviews of many of these books in my story for AlcoholProfessor are here. Citrus: A World History A Forager's Guide to Wild Drinks: Ferments, infusions and thirst-quenchers for every season Sicilian Cocktails: Contemporary Island Mixology Flavor Lab Creations: A Physicist’s Guide…