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Books > Health, Home & Family > Cookery / food & drink etc > Beverages
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."
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.
When Nicole Nared-Washington got pregnant, she knew she was going
to miss Bellinis with her girlfriends and wine with dinner. Then
she realised this was an opportunity to stay social and fun without
the booze. In Baby Proof, she shares the 50 recipes that got her
through dinner parties, barbecues, date nights and even morning
sickness. You don't need the spirits to enjoy the cocktail!
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.
Brewing Everything is a thorough, accessible and humourous guide to
brewing anything from beer to cider to sake. For every brewing
project there is both an easy way and a hard way, a method useful
to both the curious novice and the hardcore brewing veteran. Each
chapter includes interviews with experts (brewmasters, cidermakers,
new meadery startups and small-batch kombucha sellers) as well as
the author's own home- tested recipes. Brewing Everything walks you
through the process from start to finish, beginning with easier
shortcuts until you get the hang of it, and then upgrading to the
harder stuff after you've brewed a thing or two. With step-by-step
instructions, colour photographs and methods for every level of
experience. This is the ultimate guide to all things home-brewed.
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.
From the foremost master of cheese in the country, Max McCalman,
comes a practical twist on wine and cheese pairings that includes
detailed information about the history, production and unique
flavor of fifty of the world's finest cheeses, as well as the
accompanying information about the best wine varietals and vintages
to pair them with.
The easy-to-navigate swatchbook format fans out to reveal the ideal
wine and cheese match for any occasion.
The definitive guide to the contemporary craft cocktail movement,
from one of the highest-profile, most critically lauded, and
influential bars in the world.
Featuring hundreds of recipes for signature Death & Co
creations as well as classic drink formulas, "Death & Co" is
not only a comprehensive collection of the bar's best, but also a
complete cocktail education. With chapters on the theory and
philosophy of drink-making; a complete guide to the spirits, tools,
and other ingredients needed to make a great bar; and specs for
nearly 500 iconic drinks, "Death & Co" is destined to become
the go-to reference on craft cocktails. Filled with beautiful,
evocative photography; illustrative charts and infographics; and
colorful essays about the characters who fill the bar each night,
"Death & Co"--like its namesake bar--is bold, elegant, and
setting the pace for mixologists around the world.
Beverages provides thorough and integrated coverage in a
user-friendly way, and is the second of an important series dealing
with major food product groups. It is an invaluable learning and
teaching aid and is also of great use to the food industry and
regulatory personnel.
A very popular title that reprints regularly, this book contains
full instructions for making real draught ale, bottled and keg
beers, lagers and stouts from around the world, all at a fraction
of the price you would pay in a pub. Home brewing is now an
established hobby backed by a mature industry that provides all the
necessary ingredients as used by the commercial brewers. Many of
the 107 recipes in this book have been adapted from information
given by the breweries themselves about their particular beers, so
first-class results are virtually assured. Beers replicated in this
book include: Guinness; Carling Black Label; Worthington White
Label; Thomas Hardy Ale; Greene King Pale Ale; Newcastle Brown Ale;
Mackeson; Fullers ESB; Brakspears Special Bitter; Fullers London
Pride; Eldridge Pope Royal Oak; Greene King Abbot Ale; Marston's
Pedigree; Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter; Theakstons' Old
Peculiar; Wadsworth's 6X; Youngs Special Bitter; Stella Artois;
Pilsner Urquell; Budweiser.
"Thoughtfully conceived and very well written, this is essential
somm reading."-The Somm Journal "This is the most important wine
book of the year, perhaps in many years."-The Seattle Times
"Crisply written, impeccably researched, balanced if fundamentally
enthusiastic, scholarly but accessible, and full of unexpected
details and characters."-The World of Fine Wine No wine category
has seen more dramatic growth in recent years than American
Rhone-variety wines. Winemakers are devoting more energy, more
acreage, and more bottlings to Rhone varieties than ever before.
The flagship Rhone red, Syrah, is routinely touted as one of
California's most promising varieties, capable of tremendous
adaptability as a vine, wonderfully variable in style, and highly
expressive of place. There has never been a better time for
American Rhone wine producers. American Rhone is the untold history
of the American Rhone wine movement. The popularity of these wines
has been hard fought; this is a story of fringe players, unknown
varieties, and longshot efforts finding their way to the
mainstream. It's the story of winemakers gathering sufficient
strength in numbers to forge a triumph of the obscure and the
brash. But, more than this, it is the story of the maturation of
the American palate and a new republic of wine lovers whose
restless tastes and curiosity led them to Rhone wines just as those
wines were reaching a critical mass in the marketplace. Patrick J.
Comiskey's history of the American Rhone wine movement is both a
compelling underdog success story and an essential reference for
the wine professional.
A delightful history of cocktails from the era of new interstate
highways, sprouting suburbs, and atomic engineering America at
midcentury was a nation on the move, taking to wings and wheels
along the new interstate highways and in passenger jets that soared
to thirty thousand feet. Anxieties rippled, but this new Atomic Age
promised cheap power and future wonders, while the hallmark of the
era was the pleasure of an evening imbibing cocktails in mixed
company, a middle-class idea of sophisticated leisure. This new
age, stretching from the post-World War II baby boom years through
the presidency of General Dwight Eisenhower into the increasingly
volatile mid-1960s, promised affordable homes for those who had
never dreamed of owning property and an array of gleaming
appliances to fill them. For many, this was America at its
best-innovation, style, and the freedom to enjoy oneself-and the
spirit of this time is reflected in the whimsical cocktails that
rose to prominence: tiki drinks, Moscow mules, Sea Breezes, Pina
Coladas, Pink Squirrels, and Sloe Gin Fizzes. Of course, not
everyone was invited to the party. Though the drinks were getting
sweeter, the racial divide was getting more bitter-Black Americans
in search of a drink, entertainment, or a hotel room had to depend
on the Green Book for advice on places where they would be welcome
and safe. And the Cold War and Space Race proceeded ominously
throughout this period, as technological advances alternately
thrilled and terrified. The third installment in Cecelia Tichi's
tour of the cocktails enjoyed in various historical eras,
Midcentury Cocktails brings a time of limitless possibilities to
life though the cocktails created, named, and consumed.
Stay Me With Flagons was Healy's love letter to wine, and to the
wines he enjoyed with friends during his long study of the subject.
He takes you on a comprehensive tour of Europe, visiting all the
key wine regions of the time, and sometimes commenting on the
impact of the Second World War on wine production. Originally
written in 1940, this edition was first published after Healy's
premature death in 1950 with notes from his great friend Ian
Maxwell Campbell, including insertions when he disagreed with this
friend! An elegiac and yet often humorous study of wine, which is
as readable now as it was then. With a new foreword by winemaking
and wine-writing expert, Fiona Morrison MW. The Classic Editions
breathe new life into some of the finest wine-related titles
written in the English language over the last 150 years. Although
these books are very much products of their time - a time when the
world of fine wine was confined mostly to the frontiers of France
and the Iberian Peninsula and a First Growth Bordeaux or Grand Cru
Burgundy wouldn't be beyond the average purse - together they
recapture a world of convivial, enthusiastic amateurs and
larger-than-life characters whose love of fine vintages mirrored
that of life itself.
This is the book for the winemaker who likes the ease and
convenience of making wine from concentrates for those who enjoy
wine but lacks the facilities to make it from grapes and other
fruits. The recipes in this edition are formulated from
concentrates which are readily available to make 1-2 gallon batches
of wine. The book is the culmination of many years of work with
concentrates from all over the world. Peter Duncan's vast
experience and knowledge of the way wine can be made with
concentrates is all here in these pages - this is the book that
every winemaker who uses them will want to keep for ready
reference.
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