Oz uses his trademark wit and irreverent style to teach you the basics of wine appreciation and show you how to get more out of a bottle of wine, and find out what is really inside. Have you ever gone into your local wine shop or looked at the wine list in your local bar and thought with a sense of panic `Help, what do I choose?'... What sort of wine do I fancy today? A refreshing white? A summery red to take on a picnic or a spicy wine to go with a winter's stew?' Well, Oz is here to help. Split into sections covering basics (wine at a glance, good grape guide, wine styles, from grape to glass and quick guide to countries); practical stuff (what the label tells you, the canny wine buyer, essential kit, serving and keeping wine); and becoming a wine geek (tasting wine, starting your own collection, finding out more and quick guide to names in wine). Oz will be your guide through the world of fascinating flavours and help you find the sort of wine you enjoy drinking. Dip into this book and you will find a quick, accessible guide to wine styles: what is warm and spicy or chewy and blackcurranty? He recommends wines to try; and explains what the label tells you about the taste and quality of the wine and whether it is any good or not. Soon you will be confident enough to choose between flavoursome reds such as Shiraz or Pinot Noir, and refreshing whites from Alberino to Sauvignon Blanc. The book is divided into short, easy to read topics, with recommended wines to try covering all styles and flavours. Now is the moment to grab that glass, learn about what is inside that bottle and taste while you read...

From Scratch: Brew includes recipes and top tips on everything you need to know to make your own beer from scratch. Making good beer at home is easy, and oh so cheap. From Scratch: Brew takes the novice beer-enthusiast by the hand and talks you through every last step of the process.

The craft beer revolution is upon us. All over the world we're enjoying bottles of American craft, old Belgian, real British ale and exquisite German lager, and you can make it all for yourself. You don't need to go out and buy loads of kit. With a plastic bucket or two, you can make beer as good as any beer in the entire world and customize it to your own tastes.

Extracting from and updating his book Brew, James Morton offers comprehensive sections on how and what you need to get started, bottling and storing, a glossary of key ingredient types, troubleshooting tips and proven beer recipes that result in complex flavors; every taste and skill level is catered for.

From Scratch: Brew isn't like other brewing books. It is for those who have never brewed and want to understand more, for those who have a basic grasp and a few beers under their belt, and it is for those with experience who want inspiration to continue to grow. Text is extracted and updated from Brew: The Foolproof Guide to Making World-Class Beer at Home by James Morton.

This completely updated second edition of the best-selling beer resource features the most current information on beer styles, flavour profiles, sensory evaluation guidelines, craft beer trends, food and beer pairings, and draft beer systems. You'll learn to identify the scents, colours, flavours, mouth-feel, and vocabulary of the major beer styles -- including ales, lagers, weissbeirs, and Belgian beers -- and develop a more nuanced understanding of your favourite brews with in- depth sections on recent developments in the science of taste. Spirited drinkers will also enjoy the new section on beer cocktails that round out this comprehensive volume.

Traditional craft-brewed beer can transform a meal from everyday to extraordinary. It's an affordable, accessible luxury. Yet most people are only familiar with the mass-market variety. Have you tasted the real thing? In The Brewmaster's Table, Garrett Oliver, America's foremost authority on beer and brewmaster of the acclaimed Brooklyn Brewery, reveals why real beer is the perfect partner to any dining experience. He explains how beer is made, relays its fascinating history, and, accompanied by Denny Tillman's exquisite photographs, conducts an insider's tour through the amazing range of flavors displayed by distinct styles of beer from around the world. Most important, he shows how real beer, which is far more versatile than wine, intensifies flavors when it's appropriately paired with foods, creating brilliant matches most people have never imagined: a brightly citric Belgian wheat beer with a goat cheese salad, a sharply aromatic pale ale to complement spicy tacos, an earthy German bock beer to match a porcini risotto, even a fruity framboise to accompany a slice of chocolate truffle cake. Whether you're a beer aficionado, a passionate cook, or just someone who loves a great dinner, this book will indeed be a revelation.

What's the difference between a pilsner and a stout? Why is water so important to beer? What's the best temperature to serve a lager, an ale, or a stout? What the heck is a hop anyway? Betts makes the science and history of beer as refreshing as an ice-cold one on a hot summer day and couples accessible information with beautiful illustrations and sixteen scratch & sniff scents. Everyone from frat bros to the snootiest beer snobs will learn something new. With this knowledge in hand, and some scratching and sniffing, you'll have the tools to make informed decisions about the brews that will make you smile every time. Cheers!

The Essential Bartending Crash Course
Do you know how to set up a full bar for that party you're having? How much vermouth to use when your first guest requests a "dry martini on the rocks?" How to measure out a shot of alcohol using the three-count method?
You'll find the answers to all of these questions and much more in this indispensable guide. Rather than teaching you recipes for drinks you've never heard of and will never have to make, the authors focus on the fundamentals of bartending--using the tools, learning the terminology and drink mnemonics, and setting up for a cocktail party. This book will transform the most ignorant imbiber into a sauce-slinger extraordinaire, ready to go out and bartend recreationally or professionally.
This guide includes:
-Basic bar setups, tools, and helpful techniques
-Hundreds of recipes for the most popular drinks and punches, from chocolate martinis to salty dogs
-New chapters featuring everything a bartender needs to know about beer and wine
-A new and improved guide to throwing a fabulous cocktail party
-Hints on finding a bartending job
-Diagrams, illustrations, and many useful tips throughout.

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

Award-winning sommelier Chris Morrison believes that your wine decisions should be driven by your own sense of taste - and by the way you like to eat, drink and live. In This Is Not A Wine Guide he helps readers develop the confidence to choose, purchase, serve, share and ultimately even collect wine without feeling the need to rely on the 'old rules' involving notes, scores, jargon and reviews. Morrison answers the question all of us ponder when faced with choosing wine from a wine list or from the bottleshop shelf: 'Where do I start?' This Is Not A Wine Guide tackles the fundamentals and then moves from the bottle forwards: into the reasons you choose it, open it and drink it; with what company, under what circumstances, in what glasses - and with what food. Because this is a wine book for people who also love food. For Morrison, food and its taste and textures represent the narrative that can unlock wine - 'wine doesn't make sense without food'. This Is Not A Wine Guide is packed with information and advice to help you get the most out of your wine experience, whether it's cracking a bottle for a barbecue, navigating a wine list in a restaurant, wondering what to serve with kimchi, or what to do when the cork crumbles.

In this beautifully crafted book, award-winning writer Dave Broom examines Scotch whisky's links to landscape, agriculture, culture, and community. Starting in Orkney, he travels south via the north-east coast and the Spey valley, to the westerly peninsulas and Hebridean islands of Skye, Raasay and Harris, before the journey finishes, via the blenders of the central belt, on the island of Islay. The trip also follows Scotch's history from Neolithic brewers to today's innovators - a tale told by distillers, but also musicians, writers and poets. What does it mean to make whisky in these places, how does a distillery reflect place in its flavour, and what is its role in communities? With stunning specially commissioned photography by Christina Kernohan, A Sense of Place will enhance and deepen every whisky drinker's, and lover of Scotland's, understanding of the spirit, and the country.

Craft delicious, creative mixed drinks using pantry staples with this essential recipe book guaranteed to satiate any cocktail craving. We all want to be the type of host who can put together a tasty meal or a delicious appetizer for unexpected company by creatively using the odds and ends from our pantry or fridge. That same improvisational approach can be applied to home bartending with impressive (and tasty!) results. Knowing how to enlist the everyday basics cluttering up your kitchen, like condiments, jams, pickles, and sauces, means you can craft inventive, flavorful cocktails on the fly, satisfying cravings and fulfilling your guest's requests. Pantry Cocktails is an organized, easy-to-follow guide that not only includes cocktail recipes but accompanying themed food boards (such as The Warming Hut Board inspired by New Mexico flavors), helpful tips and hacks, and useful pantry suggestions. Recipes include: -A Sushi Mary with the wasabi and white miso pastes in your fridge (from that sushi delivery last week) -A Basil-Cello Frosecco or Ginger-Orange Shrub Shandy from your garden -Off-Season Bellini using peaches from your cupboard You will learn which key bottled spirits to keep in your liquor cabinet, which fridge and cupboard staples you can repurpose, and how to use seasonal herbs from your patio or garden to create outstanding cocktails that are sure to satisfy and impress.

Master the art of mixology with these easy infographic cocktail recipes. Preparing a first-class cocktail relies upon understanding the ingredients and the complex alchemy of how they work together. In this book, each beautifully designed infographic presents the measurements in easy-to-see glass proportions and instructs on which garnish and type of glass should be used for each drink. From coolers and coladas to slings, sours and screws, this book includes over 200 recipes for both old favourites and modern inventions. An informative introduction gives details on equipment needed, glassware, bar stocking and the basic techniques to get you started. Whether you like Gin, Tequila, Rum, Vodka, Champagne or Whisky, this book is a must-have for any cocktail drinker.

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."

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.

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.

Craft the perfect whiskey cocktail! Enjoy over 100 whiskey cocktail recipes, featuring your favorite spirit! From the Manhattan to the Mint Julep, whiskey is the foundation of some of the most iconic, old-school cocktails, and its renaissance has led to an array of innovative new creations. Whether you prefer your drinks tart and refreshing or complex and spirit-forward, this artfully curated collection features: - More than 100 whiskey cocktail recipes with chapters dedicated to whiskey, bourbon, rye, and whiskey liqueurs and creams - Distillery profiles on Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Hartfield & Co., Heaven Hill, Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Willett, and Woodford Reserve - Facts about the origins of whiskey found all throughout the book - These libations and more: Gentleman's Manhattan, Perfect Old Fashioned, Rob Roy, Southern Charm, Hot Toddy, Pomegranate Smash, Tennessee Mule, Vieux Carre, Maker's Boulevardier, Jack and Ginger, Black Manhattan, Buffalo Smash, Whiskey Sling, Sazerac, South of NY Sour, Blackberry Sage Julep Whiskey Cocktails is an essential guide for anyone looking to craft an impeccable drink. From the whiskey aficionado to the beginner, there is a whiskey drink for everyone with a wide variety of classic whiskey recipes and modern originals to choose from. This beautifully designed book is perfect for anyone who wants to mix whiskey drinks at home and is a great gift for whiskey lovers.

How to Brew is the definitive guide to making quality beers at home. Whether you want simple, sure-fire instructions for making your first beer, or you’re a seasoned homebrewer working with all-grain batches, this book has something for you.

John Palmer adeptly covers the full range of brewing possibilities—accurately, clearly and simply. From ingredients and methods to recipes and equipment for brewing beer at home, How to Brew is loaded with valuable information on brewing techniques and recipe formulation.

A perennial best seller since the release of the third edition in 2006, How to Brew, is a must-have to update every new and seasoned brewer’s library.

This completely revised and updated edition includes:

• More emphasis on the “top six priorities”: sanitation, fermentation temperature control, yeast management, the boil, good recipes, and water.
• Five new chapters covering malting and brewing, strong beers, fruit beers, sour beers, and adjusting water for style.
• Expanded and updated charts, graphs, equations, and visuals.
• Expanded information on using beer kits.
• Thorough revision of mashing and lautering chapters:
• Expanded tables of recommended times and temperatures for single-infusion, multiple-step, and decoction mashing.
• Complete discussion of first wort gravity as a function of water to grist ratio.
• Complete revision of infusion and decoction equations.
• Revised and updated information on managing your fermentation: Yeast pitching and starters; Yeast starter growth factors; Yeast and the maturation cycle.
• And much more!