Issue No. 139

THE BAR BOOK GIVES YOU A 360-DEGREE EDUCATION IN BARCRAFT

The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique

by Jeffrey Morgenthaler (author) and Alanna Hale (photographer)

Chronicle Books

2014, 288 pages, 7 x 9.5 x 1 inches

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As someone who spent many misguided years of my youth drinking poorly-eyeballed gin and tonics out of coffee mugs, I never really understood: How exactly can you make cocktails “well” or “poorly”? Isn’t it a simple matter of ratios – of pouring the right amount of the right things into a glass, chucking in an ice cube or two and calling it a day? Where is the mysterious opportunity in that simple process to either mess it up or do it exceptionally well? Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s The Bar Book is a masterclass on that very subject.

The Bar Book is not a recipe book. Instead, it is a techniques book.…