This New Cocktail Book Takes You Around The World In 600 Recipes

Featuring 610 cocktail recipes from 60 countries and 6 continents, Phaidon’s Spirited: Cocktails from Around the World is the gorgeous new cocktail-making encyclopedia for at-home bartenders and travel lovers.

It’s not easy to find a cocktail book that covers so much territory and history. Encompassing over 500 years of cocktail culture from its earliest known inceptions to modern-day resurgences, Spirited comes from the mind of longtime cocktail expert Adrienne Stillman and takes you on globetrotting adventure from the shores of tropical isles to the rooftop bars of cosmopolitan cities.

So much more than just a cocktail recipe book, Spirited is the beverage bible and definitive guide for cocktail lovers that want to master—and enjoy—both the timeless classics and newest cocktail tastes and treads. Six main color-coded chapter are divided by cocktail style (e.g. ‘Refreshing,’ ‘Sours,’ ‘Spirit Forward,’ Tiki and Tropical,’ ‘Coffee and Dessert’ and ‘Punches’). Each of the 610 drink recipes are labeled with a date or date range; location; background information; and the full recipe, which is easy to follow and simply explained. Most drinks have only a handful of ingredients, and they’ll usually easily sourced, making this new cocktail book a good gift for both the expert mixologist or beginner bartender. Aside the recipes, icons are used to denote drinks that are low ABV (alcohol by volume) or contain egg, dairy, nuts, spice, fruit, vegetables and/or herbs.

Gorgeous photos of the cocktails add to the tome’s chic style, and at the start of the book, there’s a comprehensive introduction dedicated to setting up your home bar with a focus on equipment, glassware, techniques, ingredients, garnishes, spirits and syrups, and cordials. The comprehensive tome of cocktail wisdom is concluded with a thorough index organized by both spirit and raw ingredient.

Spirited is also a book for travel-lovers. The cocktails featured within come from 60 countries and 6 continents, and iconic drinking cites around the world like Havana, New Orleans, London, Paris and Manhattan are highlighted. There are also plenty of cocktails from newer cocktail hotspots like Johannesburg, Nairobi, Stockholm and Red Hook in Brooklyn, and there under-the-radar finds too, with cocktails from Trøndelag, Norway (see the coffee-based Karsk) and Somoa (see the Doctor Funk, the only tiki cocktail with roots in the South Pacific).     

Spirited: Cocktails from Around the World is the latest title in Phaidon’s International Culinary Bible series and is available to order now.

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