Discover your new favourite wines, beers, spirits and cocktails in this unique and ingenious guide, led by your own taste buds 'All about the pleasures of raising a glass. This book tells you what to try next and why . . . Cheers!' Michel Roux Jr 'A kind of Flavour Thesaurus but for drinks. A joyful, thoughtful labyrinth in which you can happily lose yourself for hours' Daily Telegraph **Finalist in the Guild of Food Writers Award for Drinks Book of the Year** ________ Do you always ask for the same old wine, the usual pint, the reliable spirit? It's all too easy to play it safe, and finding new favourites can take time and effort. Until now. Using the algorithm 'If you like this, you'll love that', this ingenious guide will lead you by your taste buds, using your existing favourite drinks and flavours to reveal vast varieties that will also suit your palate. Fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc? Try Sancerre for similar grassy notes. Partial to Vintage Champagne? Believe it or not, you may also like a Brown Porter. Those who enjoy Scotch Single Malt Whisky should give a Californian Pinot Noir a go, while a preference for Pornstar Martinis suggests you'll also be fond of Japanese Sake. Exploring the gamut of flavour styles, from floral and fruity to smoky and spicy, then showcasing all the drinks in which you can find them, from wine, beer, cider, tequila and vodka through to tea, coffee, mixers and everything in between There's a whole universe of incredible wine, beer, spirits and cocktails just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed - if only we can step outside that comfort zone. This book will show you how. ________ 'Rob Buckhaven will help you discover your new favourite tipple . . . He knows his stuff and his enthusiasm is infectious' Sunday Express

Today fortified wines are enjoying a renaissance, re-discovered by discerning imbibers and modern mixologists all over the world. Once a popular tipple to savour before or after dinner, fortified wines - Sherry, Port, Madeira and the like - had fallen out of favour in recent times. But now, in pubs and wine bars, high-end restaurants and homes, these wines are finding their way into innovative cocktails, and are being appreciated anew for their fine qualities and strong, complex tastes. This is the ultimate guide to these freshly rediscovered beverages that are sweeping the globe. In lively style, Becky Sue Epstein surveys the latest innovations and trends, along with their colourful history - the merchants, warriors and kings that helped create them. Featuring fine images, along with anecdotes, facts, history and recipes, this is a superb tour of the long history of fortified wines, and their global resurgence today.

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!

The perfect way to spend an afternoon! When the occasion calls for a drink, but not getting drunk, mix up a batch of day drinks - creative, low-alcohol cocktails that are festive, delicious, and easy on the booze. Using beer, wine, cider, sake, sherry, and vermouth, plus a variety of amari and other liqueurs, here are 50 light drinks for hot days, warm drinks for cool days, and an abundance of classic - and reimagined - spritzers, sangrias, micheladas, and so much more.

What is taste? Is it individual or imposed on us from the outside? Why are so many of us so intimidated when presented with the wine list at a restaurant? In "The Accidental Connoisseur," journalist Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives, industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars, and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different from the wine drunk by our grandparents.
In his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired, little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this is a wine book like no other.

In a lively tour around the world and through the millennia, "Uncorking the Past" tells the compelling story of humanity's ingenious, intoxicating quest for the perfect drink. Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, brings us up to date on what we now know about how humans created and enjoyed fermented beverages across cultures. Along the way, he explores a provocative hypothesis about the integral role such libations have played in human evolution. We discover, for example, that the cereal staples of the modern world were probably domesticated for their potential in making quantities of alcoholic beverages. These include the delectable rice wines of China and Japan, the corn beers of the Americas, and the millet and sorghum drinks of Africa. Humans also learned how to make mead from honey and wine from exotic fruits of all kinds - even from the sweet pulp of the cacao (chocolate) fruit in the New World. The perfect drink, it turns out - whether it be mind-altering, medicinal, a religious symbol, a social lubricant, or artistic inspiration - has not only been a profound force in history, but may be fundamental to the human condition itself.