DrinkHacker posted a nice review of Doctors and Distillers.
English does an excellent job diving deep into the symbiotic history between medicine and alcohol, but he skillfully avoids the dry, academic presentation of information with a light touch and informal accessibility usually absent in alcohol history books.
Reviewer Rob Theakston gives it an "A" or a 9.5 out of 10. Read it here.
According to the What's Health Got to Do With It? podcast on WJCT news, Doctors and Distillers is one of the best medical books of 2022.
Listen to the podcast in which I'm a guest in the second segment.
Along with the review, the New York Times put Doctors and Distillers on their list of book recommendations for the week. Awesome!
For the Washington Examiner, Jacob Grier reviews Doctors and Distillers:
The recipes are a welcome addition, since, as befits the subject matter, Doctors and Distillers is not a dry text. The history is lively, told without getting too bogged down in details of medieval medicine, fermentation, and distillation. Mix the drinks as one goes and you may end up not only with a new favorite cocktail but also a fun story of its medicinal roots to accompany it.
The UK title of Doctors and Distillers is A Perfect Tonic. It's the same book otherwise.
A Perfect Tonic was reviewed in Susan Low's The Kitchen Bookshelf column in Falstaff International.
She writes:
Drinks writer Camper English’s deep interest in science fuels The Perfect Tonic. The book explores the history of fermented and distilled beverages, from the Indian Vedic period (2500-200 BCE) to the modern day, via the Ancient Greeks, and venturing into China, Persia and beyond.
…
It’s an intoxicating book, combining equal parts medicinal lore and history, and fizzing with factual oddities. An entertaining read that deserves to be savoured slowly over a Negroni or two.
I'm very pleased with that review!
I was recently interviewed by Astrid Kane of the SF Standard about Doctors and Distillers. You can read the full interview here.
Jason Wilson wrote up a great story in The Washington Post Magazine considering the modern "low and no" movement, the threat (or not) of neo-prohibitionists, and thoughts about "mindful drinking" and health of alcohol in general.
He interviewed me for the story and provided a fantastic partial book summary:
Read the full story here. Learn more about Doctors and Distillers here.
My very favorite magazine, Scientific American, published a review of Doctors and Distillers in the August 2022 issue. Needless to say I'm delighted with it!
