There are many interesting drinks that have been lost to time, but some, such as cider, mead (which has been around since about 7000BC) and perry are reinventing themselves. This book explains where and when to find your raw materials and what sort of equipment you'll need. It includes delicious recipes that use common and less common fruits. It will also show you how to cut (expensive) corners without cutting corners on quality. Contents: About the author; Introduction; 1. The History of Brewing; 2. Apple Varieties; 3. Types of Honey; 4. Making Cider - Hawky's Way; 5. Making Scrumpy; 6. Making Your Own Infusions; 7. A Taste of the Middle East; 8. Making Perry; 9. Making Mead; 10. Making Beer; 11. Ireland on my Mind, and my Liver; 12. Making Country Wines; Index.

The marines on the First Fleet refused to sail without it. Convicts risked their necks to get hold of it. Rum built a hospital and sparked a revolution, made fortunes and ruined lives. In a society with few luxuries, liquor was power. It played a crucial role, not just in the lives of individuals like James Squire - the London chicken thief who became Australia's first brewer - but in the transformation of a starving penal outpost into a prosperous trading port. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources, Grog offers an intoxicating look at the first decades of European settlement and explores the origins of Australia's fraught love affair with the hard stuff.

Armed with cutting-edge research and a barfly's thirst for the truth, cocktail instructor Brian D. Hoefling tackles the most burning questions and longest-held myths surrounding that most ancient of human pastimes-with the science to either back them up or knock them down. From the ins and outs of aging to the chemistry of a beer head and the science behind your hangover, Distilled Knowledge provides a complete and comical education that will put an end to any barroom dispute, once and for all.