![]() ![]() It wasn’t long, though, before he was recruited to open the Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley. He worked as a bartender through college at the award-winning Montrio in Monterey, CA. John went from dish washer, to busser, to waiter before finding his stride at the bar. Bitten by the hospitality bug in high school and continuing through college, he used his skills to move ahead when others may have thrown in the towel – literally. John Pomeroy is the epitome of balance – in life and in his cocktails. ![]() Casey is, “especially adept at painting the transparent glass and shiny surfaces that appear in any realistically rendered picture of cocktails, wine, or beer.” It is a celebration of art in the glass and on the canvas. They seem very well done (to this cocktail writer) and as noted by coauthor James Waller, artist Todd M. But this is a cocktail book of art the oil paintings that accompany each drink are the focus. It’s a solid selection with few surprises. In Cocktails, A Still Life, the text of the book was mostly written by noted cocktail and spirits author/journalist Christine Sismondo, so the text is of equal quality to the concept.Īs for the drinks, the sixty cocktails are all classics or modern classics, organized into occasions for drinking like aperitivo hour and after dinner. The problem with many of them is that the author may succeed in coming up with great drink names to pair with the concept in their area of expertise but fail at coming up with good-tasting drinks or the drink descriptions are filled with since-disproven cocktail myths rather than accurate facts. In the last couple of years there have been a slew of cocktail books paired with a concept: witchcraft, fashion design, puns, Star Wars, movies, books, and more. Casey, Christine Sismondo, and James Waller Other featured players in Black drink history introduced in the book include bartenders Cato Alexander of New York and Dick Francis of DC, moonshiner Bertie “Birdie” Brown, and three mixologists of old famous for their Mint Juleps.Ĭocktails, A Still Lif e by Todd M. The book is introduced with some brief but interesting history of Black mixology and traditions, including the history of Caribbean rum, the tradition of “pouring one out” for lost friends and family, the tale of Nearest Green who taught Jack Daniel to distill, and the Black Mixologists Club dating to 1898. The recipes are all relatively easy to execute at home, with a few infused syrups and other homemade ingredients, but nothing that requires a centrifuge. A majority of those recipes come from Asare-Appiah, a globally known long-time brand advocate at Bacardi. It is a collection of 70 recipes, mostly originals, from Black bartenders. This recipe collection comes from Kingston Imperial, the publisher that issued T-Pain’s Can I Mix You a Drink? book in 2021, featuring the same dramatic style of drink photography of bright drinks set against dark backgrounds. Cocktails of Asia provides a great deal of information about the best bars in a large part of the world after all, a snapshot is worth a thousand words.īlack Mixcellence by Tamika Hall with Colin Asare-Appiah Other short sections include the aromas in baijiu, the history of Batavia arrack, and information about Japanese bartending beyond what we know about the hard shake and ice diamond carving. In addition to the cocktails attached to specific bars, included are several classics of Asia (including the Bamboo and Pegu Club). ![]() Several photos of each bar accompany each recipe, providing a helpful visual image of where we’d be enjoying that cocktail not just what is in it. Before each recipe, Graham introduces the bar and bartender from whence it came, putting into perspective the city’s bar scene and the bartender’s history and role within it. While many of the cocktails may serve more as inspiration rather than direct instruction to the home bartender, the drinks provide a window into both the theory and techniques of modern mixology in Asia. The first ingredient in the first cocktail in the book, A Moveable Feast by Agung Prabowo of Hong Kong bar Penicillin, is vodka distilled with clams and seawater. The book features recipes of course, and they tend to be the type of drinks found at hotel bars on the World’s 50 Best Bars list with unique regional ingredients and molecular mixology techniques used to prepare them. ![]() This book comes from editor of DRiNK Magazine Asia Holly Graham, who is based in Hong Kong but travels extensively, as is evident from her Instagram account Much like that snapshot of her life, the book is a snapshot of the most important cocktails, bars, and bartenders in Asia. Cocktails of Asia: Regional Recipes and the Spirited Stories Behind Them by Holly Graham ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |