Be Your Own Bartender: A Surefire Guide to Finding (and Making) Your Perfect Cocktail

Here is a beautifully produced trade paperback as complete on bartending as any book on the subject. Be Your Own Bartender is not for the causal five-o’clock cocktail drinker who likes to sip bloody marys, mimosas, or gin and tonic. This volume by C. Jones and J. McCarthy is for the cocktail aficionados, for the serious home bartenders and professionals. To be able to reproduce just a handful of the cocktails from the recipes the authors present, you need to have an absolutely complete bar and bar supplies. The authors like flowcharts through which you find a preferred cocktail for the time of day or your own likes. With many unusual ingredients (mostly known to the professional) in the book, the home bartender has a task of some serious shopping for supplies (such as Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueurs; Aztec chocolate bitters; celery bitters). For many of these strange ingredients (e.g. rosemary honey) the authors provide recipes you can quickly prepare. The book (and flowcharts) are divided into seven categories: vodka, gin, rum, agave, whiskey, brandy, and low-proof. The authors give you their recommended brands. Pro Tips sidebars are useful. This book on bartending is more suitable to professionals rather than to home bartenders.