Rum, once the poor relation of the spirit world, has undergone a revival and is no longer seen just as the preferred tipple for tipsy pirates. The craft drinks movement has certainly stimulated the rum world, with high numbers of new artisan rum brands launching around the world in the last few years. The rise of the rum cocktails is another successful trend, with the popularity of mojitos and mai tai contributing greatly in the growth and development of the rum market. Ian Buxton, the UK's No.1 bestselling author on spirits, takes us on a tour of the different colours, flavours, creation methods and characteristics, and makes his pick of the best rums in the world. Whether you like your rum in cocktails, or prefer to sip it neat, this is the only book on rum you will ever need.

Anyone looking for delicious food and wine, stunning landscapes and a warm welcome will find Germany wine country truly delightful. Germany''s different regions have the largest hectarage of vines of any country in Europe. A Traveller's Wine Guide to Germany provides a basic introduction to German wine, from the vineyards to the cellars, with guidelines on what to expect when sampling it. It also takes the wine tourist on a journey through remote areas that are infrequently visited in order to taste the best of German wines. - Itineraries and maps - Local gastronomic specialties - Hundreds of visitor-friendly wineries - Descriptions of local and regional wines - Museums and sightseeing points - Lists of wine festivals and exhibitions - Restaurants, hotels and wine stores - Reference section, websites and glossary

Shaken celebrates The Martini - the quintessential American cocktail, the crowning jewel of civilized decadence. Authors and expert mixologists Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown, revise their list of the top 100 Martini recipes, update their 100 Martini Renaissance concoctions - from chocolate to Cajun to espresso Martinis - to suit current taste, and expand their history of the rise of vodka and gin cocktails in America. In the past fifteen years the way people think about and drink cocktails, especially Martinis has radically changed. In this new edition, the reader will learn bar techniques from the 25 of the world's finest mixologists, what and where to buy the necessary supplies for a well-appointed and modern home bar, the favorite cocktail formulas of the world's leading bartenders, and much more!

This title provides a complete history of one of the world's most iconic cocktails - now the poster child of the modern cocktail revival - with fifty recipes for classic variations as well as contemporary updates.

Mix up a taste of the City by the Bay and experience San Francisco without ever leaving home! Eating and drinking are always the topics of the day in this city that is unlike any other. With San Francisco Cocktails, you will be transported to the biggest small-town city in America. Inside, you will find: - Easy-to-follow recipes sure to be crowd pleasers - Cocktail basics for your home bar, including glassware, tools, and spirits - Chapters dedicated to your favorite San Francisco neighborhoods - Profiles on some of the most recognizable bars in San Francisco along with the cocktail recipes that make them stand out - Interviews with local bartenders - Gorgeous, full-color photography gives you a taste of each cocktail long before you mix them up yourself - A list of songs and movies that will help you truly grasp the San Francisco experience No matter where you find yourself, San Francisco Cocktails is the perfect gift for cocktail lovers everywhere. This is the perfect guide for drinking like a true San Franciscan.

Keg Bottle Can is a guide to more than 100 Australian craft beers, grouped (mostly) by occasion: from sharing at a dinner party to taking to a barbecue, to challenging your palate, to enjoying art (beer with well-considered labels). Beginning with a brief history of beer and how it's made, each entry in Keg Bottle Can then gives key tasting information on the beer, as well as a backstory about the brewer and the beer itself, and food pairing and glassware suggestions. The beer world is a broad church - and there really is something for everyone. And while it's fine to drink a beer out of a bottle at a barbecue, if you pair it with food, there are nice glasses for it too. Keg Bottle Can offers the confidence and knowledge to do both, rather than feeling bound by boring hard and fast rules.

A captivating introduction to the world of fine whiskies, brought to you by bestselling author, restaurateur, bar-owner and world-class drinks connoisseur Tristan Stephenson. Tristan explores the origins of whisky, from the extraordinary Chinese distillation pioneers well over 2,000 years ago to the discovery of the medicinal 'aqua vitae' (water of life), through to the emergence of what we know as whisky. Explore the magic of malting, the development of flavour and the astonishing barrel-ageing process as you learn about how whisky is made. After that, you might choose to make the most of Tristan's bar skills with some inspirational house-blends and whisky-based cocktails. This fascinating, entertaining and comprehensive book is sure to appeal to aficionados and novices alike.

A rich romp through untold American history featuring fabulous characters, "The Wild Vine" is the tale of a little-known American grape that rocked the fine-wine world of the nineteenth century and is poised to do so again today.

Author Todd Kliman sets out on an epic quest to unravel the mystery behind Norton, a grape used to make a Missouri wine that claimed a prestigious gold medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. At a time when the vineyards of France were being ravaged by phylloxera, this grape seemed to promise a bright future for a truly American brand of wine-making, earthy and wild. And then Norton all but vanished. What happened?
The narrative begins more than a hundred years before California wines were thought to have put America on the map as a wine-making nation and weaves together the lives of a fascinating cast of renegades. We encounter the suicidal Dr. Daniel Norton, tinkering in his experimental garden in 1820s Richmond, Virginia. Half on purpose and half by chance, he creates a hybrid grape that can withstand the harsh New World climate and produce good, drinkable wine, thus succeeding where so many others had failed so fantastically before, from the Jamestown colonists to Thomas Jefferson himself. Thanks to an influential Long Island, New York, seed catalog, the grape moves west, where it is picked up in Missouri by German immigrants who craft the historic 1873 bottling. Prohibition sees these vineyards burned to the ground by government order, but bootleggers keep the grape alive in hidden backwoods plots. Generations later, retired Air Force pilot Dennis Horton, who grew up playing in the abandoned wine caves of the very winery that produced the 1873 Norton, brings cuttings of the grape back home to Virginia. Here, dot-com-millionaire-turned-vintner Jenni McCloud, on an improbable journey of her own, becomes Norton's ultimate champion, deciding, against all odds, to stake her entire reputation on the outsider grape.
Brilliant and provocative, "The Wild Vine" shares with readers a great American secret, resuscitating the Norton grape and its elusive, inky drink and forever changing the way we look at wine, America, and long-cherished notions of identity and reinvention.

"From the Hardcover edition."

In the recent years, Cava has taken the stage as Spain's star sparkling wine, not only thanks to its remarkable quality to price ratio, but also because more and more connoisseurs are recognizing its richness and complexity. This book offers a great overview of the Cava's origins, its elaboration, and its variety of tastes. You will learn all you need to know about the grapes, the traditional methods, as well as established and emerging premium Cava producers. Recipes of traditional Catalonian dishes that perfectly accompany a Cava dinner round off this concise, but very informative book.

When George Washington bade farewell to his officers, he did so in New York's Fraunces Tavern. When Andrew Jackson planned his defense of New Orleans against the British in 1815, he met Jean Lafitte in a grog shop. And when John Wilkes Booth plotted with his accomplices to carry out an assassination, they gathered in Surratt Tavern.
In America Walks into a Bar, Christine Sismondo recounts the rich and fascinating history of an institution often reviled, yet always central to American life. She traces the tavern from England to New England, showing how even the Puritans valued "a good Beere." With fast-paced narration and lively characters, she carries the story through the twentieth century and beyond, from repeated struggles over licensing and Sunday liquor sales, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the temperance movement, from attempts to ban "treating" to Prohibition and repeal. As the cockpit of organized crime, politics, and everyday social life, the bar has remained vital--and controversial--down to the present. In 2006, when the Hurricane Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act was passed, a rider excluded bars from applying for aid or tax breaks on the grounds that they contributed nothing to the community. Sismondo proves otherwise: the bar has contributed everything to the American story.
Now in paperback, Sismondo's heady cocktail of agile prose and telling anecdotes offers a resounding toast to taprooms, taverns, saloons, speakeasies, and the local hangout where everybody knows your name.

This illustrated introduction to Chinese wine explores the history of wine production in China, the legends and customs that surround it and its place in China today. Traditionally, Chinese wine and spirits were made from grain, and had three important uses: to perform rituals, to dispel one's worries and to heal. Today, wine is still believed to have a therapeutic benefit, but the Chinese beverage industry has expanded on a large scale and now includes famous brands of beer and, increasingly, vineyards producing red and white wine for global consumption. Chinese Wine is indispensable reading for both wine-lovers and all those with an interest in the transition from traditional to modern Chinese culture.

If you love wine, this book will give you all the knowledge and self-confidence you need to become a world-class wine taster. It reveals in methodical steps exactly how to acquire essential wine-tasting skills. Cees (it's pronounced 'Case') van Casteren is a brilliant scientist, author, and international wine competition judge, as well as one of the global super-elite (less than 500 top experts worldwide) who have been able to earn the supreme title, Master of Wine. Anyone Can Taste Wine first appeared in Dutch and instantly established itself in the Netherlands as far and away the most authoritative and popular book on the subject. From the book's introductory chapter: "Many people typically believe that the ability to taste comes from some kind of inborn, innate aptitude-as though 'taste' were a genetic hand-me-down-something that you either have, or you don't have. But that's not true. "Wine tasting is a skill. Anyone can taste wine, as long as they have normally functioning senses of smell and taste. Anyone (that is) who is motivated to learn and practice-a lot-can become a good wine taster. Genes or no genes. "Much of this skill will involve awareness of how to train your senses. While there are genetic differences between humans in terms of smelling and tasting, these innate differences do not make one taster better than another. Research by taste professor Linda Bartoshuk, previously at the University of Yale, has shown that a wine taster's ability to taste is mainly due to the amount of training that the taster has experienced. Specifically, exercises dedicated to recognizing wine scents and developing an attendant wine language are the main contributing factors in developing wine tasting abilities. The difficulty that most besets inexperienced tasters is a lack of suitable vocabulary that would enable them to name and describe the flavors and scents that they taste and smell. This vital skill, being able to describe flavors and aromas in words, remains a common problem, even for the most experienced of wine tasters. According to Professor Tim Jacob of Cardiff University, a method that will enable you to associate smells and flavors with a suitable repertoire of words will contribute greatly to the enhancement of tasting skills . . . that is . . . you just need a method. The more user-friendly, the easier it will be to learn and remember. And that's exactly what I realized at the start of my Master of Wine studies. The method had to be user-friendly in order to help me to remember all relevant aspects for tasting, describing, and analyzing the wine. In search of these aspects, I started with . . . the wine itself. With this fascinating blend of water (colorless, odorless, tasteless), alcohol (colorless, odorless, slightly sweet), acids, sugars, pigments, aromas, and tannins which together give wine its color, smell, and taste. "And I was quite quick to learn that this very curious and complex combination of color, aromas, alcohol, acids, sugars and tannins actually were the 'relevant aspects' I was looking for, and therefore the targets of my attention while developing a method. The answer to my quest was indeed in the wine itself!"

The perfect gift for cocktail lovers and would-be mixologists is this set of four mini paperback books - Gin, Tequila, Rum andVodka - beautifully packaged together in a slipcase. From favourites like the Moscow Mule, Cosmopolitan and Margarita to exotic concoctions, such as the fruity Caribbean Cruise and Kahlua-based South of the Border, there are 200 recipes to try. Each book also contains essential bartending tips and fascinating anecdotes about the cocktails and how they got their names.

The story of bourbon production is a tale of American innovation, industry, and craft. Join photographer Carol Peachee on a visual journey from farm to bottle, with stunning images of the distilleries, farms, copper, brass, and steel works, cooperages and stave mills, and barrel warehouses that transform corn into liquid gold, while former Maker's Mark President Bill Samuels Jr. and whiskey historian Carolyn Brooks trace the impact of historical industries and production methods on the modern bourbon brand. From the ruins and rusted machinery of early distilleries to the flames of a modern barrel factory, 280 full-color photographs of Straight Bourbon offer a rare glimpse into the creation of America's native spirit.

Home winemaking is an appealing hobby for a new generation of wine lovers lured by the promise of a great payoff - small batches of handmade wine. It's the perfect opportunity to experiment with flavours, have fun playing with chemistry, and share a few tasty bottles with friends and family. But safely fermenting, bottling, and aging wine is a demanding process requiring special equipment, impeccable sanitation, an understanding of chemical reactions, and the patience to see the aging process through to the end. No matter how experienced the home winemaker, unforeseen questions develop with every batch of new wine. When a winemaker has problems with leaky corks or finds an oily film on top of his fermenting wine, what's the simplest, quickest way to get an answer? "The Wine Maker's Answer Book" is a 24 hour helpline with advice on hundreds of wine-making dilemmas. From the basic curiosity of the novice (What equipment will I need to get started?) to the finer points of fermentation (What is the impact of malolactic fermentation on acidity?), every step of the process is covered in detail. Author Alison Crowe uses a friendly question-and-answer format to explain the mysteries of turning grape juice into wine, whether the reader is beginning with fresh grapes or a home wine-making kit. To the straightforward requests for information, she offers detailed descriptions of procedures and equipment. For stickier real-life problems, she first carefully assesses the possible causes and then gives expert advice on fixing the trouble.

Real ale and other craft beers have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and as a result more people have been compelled to try making their own homebrew. However, while the concept behind making beer is simple, the execution can at times seem complex and confusing. The key to bridging the gap between brewing in theory and practise is being able to spot the signs of trouble and know how to respond. CAMRA's Home-Brewing Problem Solver provides the information you need to nip problems in the bud - and, better still, to avoid them in the first place.

In the twelfth century the abbots of Burton began to produce beer. The dissolution of the abbey in the sixteenth century saw inns and alehouses appear, with many selling beer brewed on-site. The first recognisable brewery was Benjamin Printon's, which was established on Horninglow Street around 1708. The Trent & Mersey Canal, built in 1774/75, allowed further expansion to the industry, but it was the coming of the railway in 1839 that led to massive growth - by 1888 there were thirty-one breweries employing over 8,000 men and producing over 3 million barrels a year. In this collection of images, local author and historian Terry Garner illustrates the history of this famous east Staffordshire town and provides a fascinating insight into the many lost breweries that made Burton-on-Trent the brewing capital of the world.

Broaden your palate and enhance your appreciation for gourmet flavor combinations withTasting Wine and Cheese. Is there anything better than a great wine and cheese pairing? You might enjoy a robust cabernet with the sharp, aged cheddar, or perhaps a crisp Sancerre with a tangy, creamy chevre. Based on the curriculum Adam Centamore developed teaching at Formaggio Kitchen and the Boston Wine School, Tasting Wine and Cheese guides you through the world of flavor pairing with an emphasis on understanding and developing your own palate. Maitre d 'Fromage Adam Centamore teaches you how to first taste wines and cheeses separately, allowing you to understand the complex profiles of reds, whites, aged, and fresh. But wading through these waters is only half the battle. Tasting Wine and Cheese takes you on a journey through pairings of cheeses with white, red, sparkling, and dessert wines. There is even a section to help you pair condiments with your wine and cheese. Whether you're looking to broaden your appreciation for gourmet combinations or simply looking for a menu to host a party, you'll find everything that you need in this comprehensive guide. "Adam Centamore is a master at making the perfect wine and cheese match. The interactive pairing workshop he teaches is one of our most popular Wine School classes ever." - Jonathan Alsop, founder & executive director of the Boston Wine School and author of Wine Lover's Devotional: 365 Days of Knowledge, Advice and Lore for the Ardent Aficionado "Wine and cheese pairings decoded! In Tasting Wine and Cheese, Adam employs the same approach in this book as he does his classes - comprehensive, fun and filled with practical information for anyone interested in the enjoyment of food. The result is a pairing of its own as both a solid primer and a worthwhile reference for your future wine and cheese pairing adventures." - Tim Bucciarelli - Manager, Formaggio Kitchen

A richly illustrated account of the story of ancient viniculture The history of civilization is, in many ways, the history of wine. This book is the first comprehensive account of the earliest stages of the history and prehistory of viniculture, which extends back into the Neolithic period and beyond. Elegantly written and richly illustrated, Ancient Wine opens up whole new chapters in the fascinating story of wine by drawing on recent archaeological discoveries, molecular and DNA sleuthing, and the writings and art of ancient peoples. In a new afterword, the author discusses exciting recent developments in the understanding of ancient wine, including a new theory of how viniculture came to central and northern Europe.

No such thing as a cure for a hangover? Guess again, thanks to one of the world's best bartenders. You wake up, head spinning, stomach churning, wishing you were dead. You have a hangover--and celebrated bartender Salvatore Calabrese is here to help. He explains why we get hangovers and how to avoid them, temper them, and heal them the morning after. To do this, "Maestro" Calabrese shares his secret drink recipes to lessen the pounding in your head, from the Apothecary, Bartender's Breakfast, and Corpse Reviver to the Spirit Lifter, Suffering Bastard, and Wake-Up Call. If you can't stomach the thought of more booze, try a nonalcoholic remedy, including the Cleanser Cocktail, Dale DeGroff's Macho Gazpacho, or a Virgin Mary. Packed with insightful quotes, expert advice, and a generous dose of humor, Hair of the Dog also provides a handy hangover scale to judge your level of suffering, a three-day detox program, and a collection of herbal remedies. With the Maestro's help, you'll be back on your feet in no time!

It's time to welcome this tasty mid-twentieth-century American classics' return. Banishing artificial sweetness, the authors have brought back the fresh taste of tiki drinks with traditional recipes that honour the flavours of the Caribbean, South Pacific and the Hawaiian Islands. Including recipes inspired by Asian and South American flavours, Tiki Drinks is a hybrid of the old and the new.

A witty and immersive look at the history, mythology, science, and magical touch that makes whisky taste like a drop of gold. Braving the "all boys" clubhouse of the world of whisky has not been easy, but Shelley Sackier has managed to do just that out of her love for the drink. By turns funny and poignant and filled with vivid insight into this ancient craft, Make it a Double will persuade even a teetotaler to want a wee dram. As a woman whose first sip of whisky created the female doppelganger of a Mr. Yuk sticker, that experience produced a sharp realization that the liquid was foul, poisonous, and needlessly dirtied a previously clean glass. And then she met Scotland. Her curiosity and growing passion lit a fire-igniting a desire to learn more about this craft's rich and vivid history and the need to break out of an old life and to become the mother, partner, and woman she has always sought to be. After completing a course in Scotland's famed Bruichladdich Distillery, Shelley begins her path of writing about-and working within-the world of whisky. There has never been a better time for Shelley's inimitable voice to shed light on this intoxicating realm. Women are not only impressively contributing to the burgeoning sales of the spirit-making up nearly 40% of the whiskey-drinking population in the United States-but they are also growing in number as they enter in to, train within, and lead the industry with their determined creativity and innovation. In the tradition of Blood, Bones, and Butter, Make it a Double establishes Shelley Sackier as a fresh new voice in the lush world of culinary narrative.