Italian Wines is the English-language version of Gambero Rosso's Vini d'Italia, the world's best-selling guide to Italian wine. It is the result of a year's work by over 60 tasters, coordinated by three curators. They travel around the entire country to taste 45,000 wines, only half of which make it into the guide. More than 2,500 producers have been selected. Each entry brings together useful information about the winery, including a description of its most important labels and price levels in Italian wine shops. Each wine is evaluated according to the Gambero Rosso bicchieri rating, with Tre Bicchieri awarded to the top labels. The guide is an essential tool for both wine professionals and passionate amateurs around the globe: it provides the instruments for finding one's way in the complex panorama of Italy's wine world.

Discover why rum is becoming the hottest spirit in the world right now with the latest and greatest offering from bestselling author and master mixologist Tristan Stephenson. The Curious Bartender's Rum Revolution is the fifth book by bestselling author Tristan Stephenson. Explore rum's remarkable history from its humble origins to its status as life-blood of the Royal Navy and its love affair with Cuba. Discover its darker past, with tales of devils, pirates and its reputation as the revolutionary spirit. This fabled drink is in the midst of another revolution, transforming from uninspiring grog to premium product, with aged and spiced varieties leading the charge. Learn about how rum is made, from the science of sugar cane and molasses to distillation and unique ageing techniques. The Rum Tour will transport you to the most exciting rum distilleries the world has to offer, with Tristan's signature tasting notes guiding you towards the right rum at the right time. Explore the legendary Caribbean home of rum to the pioneering rum makers around the world embracing dynamic new techniques and taking flavour to dizzy new heights. Finally, Tristan's mixology skills will help you master jazzed-up versions of the Mai Tai and Mojito, perfect a Planter's Punch and keep you on trend with Brazil's famous Caipirinha and Batida cocktails, made with rum's sister spirit, cachaca.

ENTERTAIN WITH STYLE AND FRESHNESS! Libation-loving siblings Andre and Tenaya Darlington show you how to make cocktails from every era, reimagined for a contemporary palate. Dial back the sugar, and load up on quality ingredients. The New Cocktail Hour shows you how to mix incredible craft cocktails and gives you a complete history of classic recipes and spirits. You've never seen a cocktail book like this before! Unique features include: 214 vintage and modern recipes, complete with tasting notes Tips on pairing cocktails with everything from pizza to oysters Suggested brands for building a well-stocked bar Seasonal ideas for syrups, shrubs, and garden-to-glass drinks Advice for hosting craft cocktails parties at home

This book is the first of its kind, a deep-dive into a single sake-producing region to highlight its delicious brews as well as the people, land, and culture behind them. Brewing in Yamaguchi - in southern Honshu, Japan - reflects the whole history of sake in Japan, from boom to bust to resurgence, and many of its brands, including the fabled Dassai, are now at izakaya and fine restaurants around the world. Expert Jim Rion takes us on a tour of all 23 Yamaguchi breweries to introduce the character of each and its brewmasters' best picks. Along the way he provides background on such topics as rice farmers, drinkware, brewing methods, and the controversy over sake "terroir" (does it exist?). An added bonus for travelers is a mini sightseeing guide to the region and its many delights. Illustrated with photographs and quick-reference sake labels.

"An intoxicating read. You'll want to consume it twice." -A.J. Baime, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental President and Dewey Defeats Truman A fun little book packed with historic Churchill information, drinking companions, locations, and preferences, as well as plenty of cocktail recipes! Churchill was seldom short of a witty remark, and made his views on drinking quite well-known: "I have taken far more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me." When feeling down he said he felt like "a bottle of champagne . . . left uncorked for the night." And when encouraging a young government minister to indulge in another drink, he promised, "Go ahead, I won't write it in my diary." Divided into four sections-Drink Choices, Drinking Companions, Drinking Spots, and Drink Recipes-this book will keep readers turning the pages of fresh and fun material as they lift a drink along with Winston. The book will also focus on the various eras-from the 1910s through the 1960s-the times in which he was drinking alone and with others. Working with the historic companies that kept him refreshed, it will include vintage advertisements and marketing material from their closely guarded archives. Winston certainly drank with a colorful cast of characters, and you'll glimpse those such as FDR, Stalin, Coco Chanel, Charlie Chaplin, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and various other kings, queens, dukes, and duchesses. Among the elegant settings we will pop in and out of for a drink include Hearst Castle, Chanel's house in the South of France, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, the Dorchester in London, Monaco, the Savoy, the Biltmore, and of course the bars and first-class cabins of the famed ocean liners the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary. So raise a glass and join us in toasting Churchill's life and unique abilities!

This book tells the story of Bass, which during the mid-1800s grew from a small provincial brewery into the world's largest ale brewer. Spanning 230 years, the story is set against a backdrop of changing social attitudes, economic conditions and government regulations, and relates how all these various factors affected the brewing industry. The book also tells the story of those brewing companies, ranging from Scotland, the north of England and Midlands, to London, which during the 1960s merged to form what became Bass Charrington - at that time the UK's largest brewing company. Key to the story are the individuals and personalities who played their part in the formation of what was the dominant player in the UK brewing industry during the latter half of the twentieth century. Packed with rare and previously unpublished images, and authored by the chairman of the National Brewery Heritage Trust, this is an essential read for anybody interested in the history of beer and brewing.

This book on single malt whisky makes an excellent guide for all whisky drinkers, from the novice to the connoisseur. Single malt whisky is the fastest expanding sector of the booming whisky market. Over half of Scotland's whisky distilleries are open to visitors and visitor numbers reached record numbers of over 1.7 million in 2016. Whisky Classified has revolutionized our appreciation of single malt whisky. David Wishart cuts through the confusing jargon often used to describe single malts and replaces it with an objective and easily applied guide to taste using his easy to understand system of flavour profiles. He identifies twelve dimensions to the aroma and taste of a single malt whisky: body, sweetness, smoky, medicinal, tobacco, honey, spicy, winey, nutty, malty, fruity, floral. In this fully revised and updated edition, David Wishart has included all new UK and Irish producers of single malt whisky. The author has also updated the taste profiles for each selected malt to ensure that this book remains the definitive guide to tasting malt whisky. Each entry includes a short description of the distillery, information for visitors, the author's own tasting notes and his flavour profiles according to this innovative classification. The history of whisky-making and production methods are clearly explained, and the author also explains how to organize a whisky tasting.

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!"

Today in Britain there are over 2500 breweries, most of whom brew an ever-changing range of different beers. On the bar of any decent pub, or shelves of a good bottle shop or supermarket beer aisle, the choice can be overwhelming. People make snap decisions so quickly we don't even notice. And the design of a beer label, pump clip, bottle or can has to do a lot of work to stand out, get noticed, and suggest to the thirsty punter that here is a beer they will enjoy.

A professional booze writer whose life spins out of control tries to piece it back together by embarking upon an epic wine-fueled adventure that takes him to every corner of the U.S. Part vision quest, part guidebook, part journey into the bizarre tapestry of American life, it will make you laugh, make you cry and teach you a whole lot about wine. Former Playboy magazine nightlife columnist Dan Dunn has a made a career out of drinking. Yet this man's man-a connoisseur of beer and whiskey-knew next to nothing about one of the major drinks enjoyed the world over: wine. When a fateful tasting experience coincided with a serious existential crisis, Dunn decided to hit the road on a journey of discovery. To quench his thirst for knowledge (and be able to throw down with the experts), he would educate himself about the industry glass by glass, from winery to winery, in nearly every region in the United States. His bold 15,000-mile road trip took Dunn from Sonoma, California, to Pawley's Island, South Carolina, where he twirled, sniffed, and sipped glass after glass of a vast array of wines with vintners, savants, and celebrities, including Kurt Russell and "The Most Interesting Man in the World," Jonathan Goldsmith. Dunn's mission was to transform himself from a heartbroken schlub who barely knew the difference between Merlot and Meritage, into a confident connoisseur capable of wowing others simply by swirling some fermented grape juice around in his mouth and pronouncing it "troubling, yet brilliant." In American Wino, Dunn shares it all-the good, the bad, the sublime. As his wine knowledge grows and becomes more complex, he shares it with the reader in the form of digestible, actionable nuggets in each chapter. It's like a wine-tasting course at your local community college extension program, only with more sex and less crushing despair. An intoxicating blend of travel writing, memoir, and booze journalism that pairs earthy humor with fine wine for hilarious and enlightening results, it is the story of one man's journey to find himself-and everyman's journey to better understand the true spirit of this divine elixir.

The concept of terroir is one of the most celebrated and controversial subjects in wine today. Most will agree that well-made wine has the capacity to express "somewhereness," a set of consistent aromatics, flavors, or textures that amount to a signature expression of place. But for every advocate there is a skeptic, and for every writer singing praises related to terroir there is a study or a detractor seeking to debunk terroir as a myth. Wine and Place examines terroir using a multitude of voices and multiple points of view-from science to literature, from winemakers to wine critics-seeking not to prove its veracity but to explore its pros, its cons, and its other aspects. This comprehensive anthology lets the reader come to one's own conclusion about terroir.

Interest in wine has steadily increased in recent years, with people far more sophisticated about wine than they used to be. And, inevitably, those who take a serious interest in wine find themselves asking questions about it that are at heart philosophical.
Questions of Taste is the first book to tackle these questions, illuminating the philosophical issues surrounding our love of wine. Featuring lucid essays by top philosophers, a linguist, a biochemist, and a winemaker and wine critic, this book applies their critical and analytical skills to answer--or at least understand--many thorny questions. Does the experience of wine lie in the glass or in our minds? Does the elaborate language we use to describe wine--alluding to the flavors of cheese or fruit, or to a wine's "suppleness" or "brawniness"---really mean anything at all? Can two people taste one wine in the same way? Does a wine expert enjoy wine more than a novice? These questions and others are not just the concern of the wine lover, but go to the heart of how we think about the world around us--and are the province of the philosopher.
With a foreword by leading wine authority Jancis Robinson (editor of the highly acclaimed Oxford Companion to Wine), this volume will be of interest to anyone who thinks seriously about the experience of enjoying wine, as well as those interested in seeing philosophy applied to the world of the everyday.

Mountainous terrain, volcanic soils, innumerable microclimates, and an ancient culture of winemaking influenced by Greeks, Phoenicians, and Romans make Italy the most diverse country in the world of wine. This diversity is reflected in the fact that Italy grows the largest number of native wine grapes known, amounting to more than a quarter of the world's commercial wine grape types. Ian D'Agata spent thirteen years interviewing producers, walking vineyards, studying available research, and tasting wines to create this authoritative guide to Italy's native grapes and their wines. Writing with great enthusiasm and deep knowledge, D'Agata discusses more than five hundred different native Italian grape varieties, from Aglianico to Zibibbo.
D'Agata provides details about how wine grapes are identified and classified, what clones are available, which soils are ideal, and what genetic evidence tells us about a variety's parentage. He gives historical and anecdotal accounts of each grape variety and describes the characteristics of wines made from the grape. A regional list of varieties and a list of the best producers provide additional guidance. Comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and engaging, this book is the perfect companion for anyone who wants to know more about the vast enological treasures cultivated in Italy.

Get hoppin' with this guide to microbrewing your own beer Thinking of brewing your own beer or want to know how it's done? Homebrewing For Dummies is for you. If you're ready to take a crack at making your own brew, you'll need this guide to the supplies, ingredients, and process of crafting the perfect beer. Follow our recipes for lager, porter, stout, and other brew types--or invent your own. When you've tasted your perfect creation (and after the hangover wears off), we've got you covered with ideas for entering your beer into homebrewing competitions and selling your beer. This new edition keeps pace with the exciting world of small-batch beer, introducing you to new flavors and varieties that are popular on the microbrew circuit. We've also got the details on the latest at-home brewing equipment, software and apps, and resources you can tap (get it?) to make a better beer. Not an IPA person? Not to worry! You can also make your own hard seltzers, flavored malt beverages, and juice drinks with this handy how-to. Get recipes and instructions for brewing lagers, porters, and other beers at home Enhance the quality of your small-batch brews and make your operations more eco friendly Enter homebrewing competitions with your beer, hard seltzer, and malt beverages Discover new gadgets, apps, and resources that can make home brewing even easier Homebrewing For Dummies is for anyone looking for a fun and easy-to-use guide to the exciting, rewarding, and refreshing hobby of beer brewing.

"At last, a definitive guide to the medicinal origins of every bottle behind the bar! This is the cocktail book of the year, if not the decade." -Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants "A fascinating book that makes a brilliant historical case for what I've been saying all along: alcohol is good for you...okay maybe it's not technically good for you, but [English] shows that through most of human history, it's sure beat the heck out of water." -Alton Brown, creator of Good Eats Beer-based wound care, deworming with wine, whiskey for snakebites, and medicinal mixers to defeat malaria, scurvy, and plague: how today's tipples were the tonics of old. Alcohol and Medicine have an inextricably intertwined history, with innovations in each altering the path of the other. The story stretches back to ancient times, when beer and wine were used to provide nutrition and hydration, and were employed as solvents for healing botanicals. Over time, alchemists distilled elixirs designed to cure all diseases, monastic apothecaries developed mystical botanical liqueurs, traveling physicians concocted dubious intoxicating nostrums, and the drinks we're familiar with today began to take form. In turn, scientists studied fermentation and formed the germ theory of disease, and developed an understanding of elemental gases and anesthetics. Modern cocktails like the Old-Fashioned, Gimlet, and Gin and Tonic were born as delicious remedies for diseases and discomforts. In Doctors and Distillers, cocktails and spirits expert Camper English reveals how and why the contents of our medicine and liquor cabinets were, until surprisingly recently, one and the same.