Customer Reviews

The Cocktail Primer: All You Need to Know to Make the Perfect Drink

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Master mixologist Eben Klemm presents The Cocktail Primer, a step-by-step guide to creating not only classic cocktail favorites, but also modern variations - and understanding the basic principles of mixology to help one design a drink to fit any occasion. Full-color photographs illustrate this excellent, easy-to-follow guide to anyone eager to learn how to mix and serve drinks to suit any taste. Highly recommended.

The author of this "can't-wait-to-try-one" drink book is identified as a Master Mixologist. Now, just in case you're not familiar with that designation it is one who, among other things, creates original cocktails, blends of spirits springing not only from necessary ingredients but also from imagination, experience and experimentation.

Among Master Mixologists Eben Klemm is one of the best, although that was not his original goal. A former student of biology at Cornell University he once managed a molecular biology laboratory but also learned, as many have, that there are times when one simply needs to pay the bills and bartending is one way to do it. From that introduction Klemm became a restaurant bar manager and later created the cocktail menu and signature drinks for numerous restaurant openings. He now shares his expertise with us in this brightly illustrated COCKTAIL PRIMER.

Divided into seven chapters the book opens with everything we need to know about setting up a home bar, follows with a section on Martinis and variations thereof, and then Manhattans From there Klemm sheds light on Simple and Complex Sours before tackling Muddled Drinks (Mojito, Mint Julep, Black Cherry Bounce, etc.) The concluding chapter is devoted to Highballs in which he notes that highballs can be as simple or as complex as we want to make them. (I vote for simple as Klemm tells us those are nearly infallible.)

THE COCKTAIL PRIMER will be a welcome addition to any home bar or simply enjoyed for browsing.

- Gail Cooke