Gin: The Essential Guide for Gin Aficionados celebrates the clear spirit in all its guises; as a straight drink, the increasingly popular flavoured brands, as a base for cocktails and a cooking ingredient. It describes the history of the spirit; how it is made and how the method of distillation has changed across the centuries; the variations of gin; classic cocktail recipes; where to buy the premier brands; and tasting notes. Lavishly illustrated and written in an easy-to-read style, this book will go down as well as the most lovingly created Gin & Tonic. Few drinks can trace its history back more than half a millennium, but the Dutch genever (or jenever) is a clear predecessor of the modern gin distilled today. Gin's history makes for fascinating reading, from how it grew and faded in popularity through the ages to the types of people who drank it and the story of the G&T (surely the world's best known cocktail). According to Henry McNulty, Vogue's legendary wine and spirits columnist, 'Gin is the bad boy of the spirits world.' He may be correct, but the fact remains that gin is one of the world's most popular spirits.

Representations of treachery in medieval and early modern Spain. Treacherous Foundations is the first sustained study of the theme of treachery in the founding myths of the Iberian Peninsula. It considers literary versions, in epic, chronicle and theatre, of the legends of Fernan Gonzalez, Bernardo del Carpio and King Sancho II from medieval and early modern Spain and compares the representation of treachery across two critical periods in Spanish history, assessing its political, ideological, and cultural function. This book explores the role played by representations of treachery in foundational texts in highlighting the ideological tensions that arise from movements toward the creation of collective identities. It discusses in particular visions of nationhood and the monarchical state in the thirteenth and late sixteenth centuries. The theme of treachery is expanded to cover all aspects of treason and political disloyalty and, engaging with loyalty, trust and the nature of kingship, the volume sheds new light on aspects of Spanish cultural and political history, and provides insight into the nature of myth and collective memory, historical change and the collective response to crisis. GERALDINE COATES lectures in Medieval Spanish Literature at the University of Oxford.