Peyton, Jane – The Bell Bookshop

The philosophy of cocktails

Emma — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

An early description of a cocktail as ‘a mix of alcoholic drinks with flavoring ingredients’ does nothing to convey the alchemy and speakeasy glamour of these elaborate drinks.

The cocktail’s humble beginnings as a medicinal tonic through the inclusion of botanicals into distilled spirits such as gin and whiskey, accelerates with the ingenuity of bartenders who created the ‘classics’ – the Martini, Manhattan and Old Fashioned – in the nineteenth-century, and in the decadence of the Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties.

This book explores the journey that cocktails have made, via China and the Middle East, the Americas and the UK, to arrive at the bespoke menus of today’s stylish clubs and bars, complete with descriptions of the myriad ingredients, glassware and paraphernalia that the mixologist has at their disposal.

The Philosophy of Gin

Emma — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Few, if any, alcoholic drinks have the dramatic and multi-faceted history of gin. In this fascinating new installment of the British Library’s pocket philosophies, gin is explored through its origins in Holland, where it was popularized by William of Orange; its roots in medicine; its capacity to provide an albeit destructive escapism during the Gin Craze; its influence on language-responsible for the coining of “dutch courage;” and its current status as a popular social beverage and a pastime for those keen to experiment with flavoring their own gins. The Philosophy of Gin covers the historic transformation of the beverage, ideal flavor pairings for the gin connoisseur, and how a spirit once given a wide berth by the middle and upper classes now attracts such a large proportion of the public to choose gin as their tipple of choice.