This is my new favorite book and I didn’t have an old one. I always thought the idea of a single ‘best’ book was comically limiting, until I realised that all previous books were comically limited because they didn’t serve me Communists and the Boulevardier. Most wannabe mixologists wouldn’t say the first and couldn’t even say the second. Even though new and politically-poorly-considered plans are one of the main functions of drinking!
Every time I open it I’m faced with the subsequent agonies of
2) Deciding which wonderful new drink to have, and that’s only after
1) Deciding to have anything but another Blood and Sand.
I’m only allowing myself to read the history of each drink after making it, turning every page into a gentleman’s repose of studying ancient history while savouring a cocktail. The fact I have no Jeeves to prepare them for me only adds the satisfaction of a job well done.
I would once have counted the rarity of many ingredients as another agony, but a lifelong quest suffers no such childish impatiences. I’m going to track down every one of these elixirs. I shall hunt them down, learn their ways, and MacGyvering my mixology with modern replacements in the meantime. It’s the only kind of hunting which isn’t savagely backwards. And it’s glorious to know that the only bitternesses in my future will come in a bottles, and be delicious.
Every time I open it I’m faced with the subsequent agonies of
2) Deciding which wonderful new drink to have, and that’s only after
1) Deciding to have anything but another Blood and Sand.
I’m only allowing myself to read the history of each drink after making it, turning every page into a gentleman’s repose of studying ancient history while savouring a cocktail. The fact I have no Jeeves to prepare them for me only adds the satisfaction of a job well done.
I would once have counted the rarity of many ingredients as another agony, but a lifelong quest suffers no such childish impatiences. I’m going to track down every one of these elixirs. I shall hunt them down, learn their ways, and MacGyvering my mixology with modern replacements in the meantime. It’s the only kind of hunting which isn’t savagely backwards. And it’s glorious to know that the only bitternesses in my future will come in a bottles, and be delicious.
