The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion

It may not come as a shock to you that we like to drink, but you may not know how much the Liquor Snob staff likes to read. We're only asking for books and booze this Christmas, and not in that order. That's why we dig the title of the book we just found - The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion. We like the way it just rolls off the tongue.

This book features 151 cocktail recipes, and claims its cocktails "complement every situation imaginable . . . and then some." We're doing our best to come up with 5 situations that probably aren't included in this book - though we suppose you'll have to buy it to find out if we're right. Here's our list we'd like to drink to, though we imagine we'd be on our own for pairing a cocktail:

• Toasting your grandma's marriage to her parole officer
• Remembering the first time you heard Wilfred Brimley say Diabeetus
• Eulogizing Mr. Ed
• Commemorating your narrow escape from those cannibals
• Celebrating a successful squirrel hunt

At The Perfect Drink for Every Occasion

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Bitters: A Spirited Look at a Classic Cure-All

If you're looking for the perfect gift for the cocktail nerd on your list, you could definitely do worse than a book on bitters. An ingredient in many cocktails - and some say a requirement for most - bitters is finally getting its time in the limelight. With the resurgence of cocktail culture over the past few years there's definitely been an uptick in interest, but we haven't seen such an in-depth treatise.

Gone are the days when a lonely bottle of Angostura bitters held court behind the bar. A cocktail renaissance has swept across the country, inspiring in bartenders and their thirsty patrons a new fascination with the ingredients, techniques, and traditions that make the American cocktail so special. And few ingredients have as rich a history or serve as fundamental a role in our beverage heritage as bitters.

At Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All

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The Rum Diary [book]

Hunter S. Thompson. Puerto Rico. Johnny Depp in underpants. Copious amounts of mini bottles. A mermaid from Connecticut. Those are the images we can dredge out of our booze-soaked brains about the trailer for upcoming film The Rum Diary. We do recall that the movie looked kickass, and we always love reading a good HST yarn, so we do believe we'll pick up the novel.

"Disgusting as he usually was," Hunter Thompson writes in this, his 1959 novel, "on rare occasions he showed flashes of a stagnant intelligence. But his brain was so rotted with drink and dissolute living that whenever he put it to work it behaved like an old engine that had gone haywire from being dipped in lard."

At The Rum Diary: A Novel

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The Happy Table of Eugene Walter (Book)

We've received a copy of a book entitled "The Happy Table of Eugene Walter: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink," and being the bourbon enthusiasts we are, we jumped at the chance to review it. If you're not familiar with Mr. Walter, he was, according to his Wikipedia page, a "screenwriter, poet, short-story author, actor, puppeteer, gourmet chef, cryptographer, translator, editor, costume designer and well-known raconteur." Sounds like someone we'd like to get to know.

As we page through the book, we find all kinds of recipes, from cocktails (including more variations on the Julep than you might know existed) to a wide variety of Southern-influenced foods. Not all of the recipes feature liquor, but the ones that don't are deep fried and bacon-inclusive enough to make even Paula Deen blush - and we're pretty sure she wears a Camelbak full of melted butter. From Caribbean Flank Steak to Pensacola Shrimp to Hangover Punch, there's a little something for everyone in the book.

The real appeal for us is the colorful way in which the commentary and recipes are written, making it a real treat compared to your typical recipe book. For example, the "Maryland Julep" recipe calls for you to "gather the mint while the dew is still on it" and gives very explicit instructions on how to handle it next. We think cocktail enthusiasts and gourmands alike will find something for them in in this book.

At The Happy Table of Eugene Walter: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink

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Quotable Drunkard Book For All Your Drunken Quoting Needs

"I'm not a heavy drinker. I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop." - Noel Coward

We've always called alcohol our favorite social lubricant, that thing that untrips our tongues and helps free the witty social butterfly that lives inside us. There are some moments, however, where our wit fails us and we wish we had a reference to find out what some other drunk might have said. That's where The Quotable Drunkard book comes in.

Just think - you'll be able to pre-memorize multiple quotes for your next St. Patrick's Day toast, Best Man speech or parole hearing. We've been thumbing through the review copy we were sent and we've found quite a few good quotes, both short quips and longer passages, along with cocktail recipes and other tidbits.

The Quotable Drunkard: Words of Wit, Wisdom, and Philosophy From the Bottom of the Glass (Amazon)

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Absinthe & Flamethrowers

Did that title get your attention? It certainly got ours when we saw it emblazoned across the cover of a book (the full title of which is Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously). Most of the books we cover feature cocktail recipes and other quasi-safe ideas but this one we love because it's DANGEROUS. We have a feeling you, our debonair yet thrill-seeking reader, will love it too.

Written for reasonable risk takers and suburbanites who want to add more excitement to their lives. This daring combination of science, history, and DIY projects explains why danger is good for you and details the art of living dangerously.

Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously [via Makezine]

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Fix The Pumps: Bridging the Gap Between Soft and Hard Drinks

We haven't read Darcy O'Neil's Fix the Pumps yet, but you can bet it's on our Christmas list now that it's on our radar. We're fans of Mr. O'Neil's Art of Drink website, and this book sounds like a fascinating account of how soda jerks were the ancestors of modern mixologists, and offers solid advice on how to integrate their techniques into your own bar.

Here's a description from Ed Hamilton over at Ministry of Rum:

Fix the Pumps peers into the history of the American soda fountain and the fascinating connections it had with bars and cocktails, including raising the ire of the Temperance League. Many of the unique ingredients and techniques, employed by the pharmacists, are explored in-depth including production of in-house seltzer water, soda acidulents and 450 pre-prohibition soda recipes.

Buy Fix the Pumps

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Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl

We've made no secret of the fact we enjoy getting a little punchy during the holidays, and we're always going online to look for punch recipes. Cocktail luminary David Wondrich has released a whole book on the subject, and you can get it just in time for Christmas - or your next holiday party. We haven't read it yet, but you can expect we will.

Acclaimed cocktail expert and historian David Wondrich takes readers on a raucous guided tour of all things punch-a tour that starts with some very lonely British sailors and swells to include a cast of lords and ladies, admirals, kings, presidents, poets, pirates, novelists, spies, and other inimitable characters. And of course, authentic recipes appear throughout, with notes for the modern punch-maker.

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Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers Book

Our Editor-in-Chief is continuing on his DiY kick, and he just picked up a book called Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation. Most of the book is just as new agey as you might expect, but there are some hidden gems in there we really want to try to make. From discussions of historical beer ingredients and the history of brewing to recipes for all kinds of meads and beers, this book has plenty of information to feed your inner beer nerd.

One chapter that might be especially interesting to our readers is the one entitled "Psychotropic and Highly Inebriating Beers." In it you will find recipes for ales containing everything from wormwood to rosemary to sage to something called "gruit." One thing we found interesting about this book is that many of the recipes will send you to your grocery store (or more likely health food store) rather than your local brew shop.

On top of everything else, this book posits that beer can actually be healing and sacred, rather than just a social lubricant and sorrow-drowner, as our society often treats it. Kickass!

At Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation

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Booze and the Private Eye: Alcohol in the Hard-Boiled Novel

If there are two things we're obsessed with around here, they're booze and hard-boiled fiction. That's why we spend most of our days pretending to work, feet up on our desks, smoking cigarettes and making "private eye coffee," which as you know is 3 parts rye whiskey, 2 parts milk and sugar, and 1 part coffee. We haven't read this book, but we plan to.

The hard-bitten PI with a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer--it's an image as old as the genre of hard-boiled detective fiction itself. Alcohol has long been an important element of detective fiction, but it is no mere prop. Rather, the treatment of alcohol within the works informs and illustrates the detective's moral code, and casts light upon the society's attitudes towards drink.

At Booze and the Private Eye: Alcohol in the Hard-Boiled Novel

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The Gourmet's Guide to Cooking with Liquors and Spirits

One of our favorite things about the holidays is it's an opportunity to not just drink more booze, but a nice way to figure out other ways to consume it too. We usually put it in our desserts, but you can find creative ways to get liquors into just about anything. That's why we're bummed we just discovered The Gourmet's Guide to Cooking with Liquors and Spirits. It just came out in September, and it's chock full of all kinds of boozy treats for every course:

Try one of these recipes tonight!
Mojito Vinaigrette
Lump Crab Cakes with Basil and Kaffir Lime Vodka Aioli
White Chicken Chile with Cilantro and Whiskey
Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Blackberry Brandy Sauce
Grilled Vegetables with Anisette and Balsamic Vinegar
Curaçao Rum Cake
Irish Crème Pudding with Candied Cashews

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Modern Mixologist: Contemporary Classic Cocktails (Book)

If you're looking for a coffee table book featuring some kick-ass cocktails, you could do a lot worse than picking up Tony Abou-Ganim's Modern Mixologist. It's big, it's beautiful, it's badass - and if you don't care about the "coffee table" aspect, you can get it quite a bit cheaper for Kindle.

...in The Modern Mixologist, Abou-Ganim has established the new standard in cocktail books -- a must-have guide to home mixology in a beautiful, coffee-table-suitable format. Featuring gorgeous full-color photography throughout by the award-winning Tim Turner, this book instantly becomes the most beautiful guide to creating cocktails available anywhere. If you carry one high-end cocktail book, this is it -- sure to be a terrific gift item all year round.

At The Modern Mixologist: Contemporary Classic Cocktails

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Living Loaded Book

We've always been suckers for a book with a good subtitle, and this one may take the cake - Living Loaded: Tales of Sex, Salvation, and the Pursuit of the Never-Ending Happy Hour. Written by Playboy's Dan Dunn, these are the stories of a man who is paid to drink for a living, and seems to enjoy what he does.

We haven't read the book yet (it's not out until February 2011) but the celebrity quotes make us want to, badly. After all, who else but Dan Dunn could get endorsements from everyone from John Oates (of Hall & Oates) to adult film star Savannah Samson? A snippet from the description and you'll want to read it too:

I hereby invite you to join me, as I conduct "revealing" hotel room interviews with porn stars in LA; go Zip Cat racing in Scotland with Stifler from American Pie; enjoy whiskey-fueled romantic encounters in alleyways behind East Village watering holes; get dumped by my stripper/med student girlfriend (mid-lap dance, no less) simply for not being "husband material;" wake up naked on a big-shot Hollywood producer's living room floor; and learn, the hard way, why NEVER to order an Irish car bomb in a Dublin pub.

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Trader Vic's Tiki Party! Cocktail Recipe Book

When our fearless Editor in Chief was out in Las Vegas last month, he happened to go to a bar called Frankie's Tiki Room. Since then, he has done nothing but talk about how great the drinks were, how much fun the kitschy atmosphere was, blah blah blah. Since we're not scheduled for our Liquor Snob Intern Vegas Getaway and Fun Run* for a while, we figured we'd try to find a good resource for tiki drink recipes.

Of course, there's always Tiki Bar TV (not that they seem to update anymore), but sometimes you want to hold the drink recipe in your hands - or give it as a gift. That's where Trader Vic's, a name indelibly associated with tropical cocktails, comes in:

Every major tropical beverage (alcoholic and non-) is here--daiquiris, mai tais, punches, etc.--and Siegelman gives a snappy introduction to each, interspersing the cocktail recipes with quotes from Vic himself (on the mai tai: "Anybody who says I didn't create this drink is a dirty rotten stinker"). Ninety-five drinks later, a chapter on food appears, with suggestions for 35 pupu platter dishes, finger foods, salads, buffet-style entrees and desserts (some of which call for Trader Vic's bottled sauces). While there are certainly more high-end books on entertaining Polynesian-style available, none beats this one's authentic kitsch.

At Trader Vic's Tiki Party!: Cocktails and Food to Share with Friends

* This doesn't actually exist, but wouldn't it be incredible if it did?

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