How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well [Hardcover]

Eric Felten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2007

Based on the popular feature in the Saturday Wall Street Journal, How's Your Drink illuminates the culture of the cocktail. Cocktails are back after decades of decline, but the literature and lore of the classics has been missing. John F. Kennedy played nuclear brinksmanship with a gin and tonic in his hand. Teddy Roosevelt took the witness stand to testify that six mint juleps over the course of his presidency did not make him a drunk. Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler both did their part to promote the gimlet. Fighting men mixed drinks with whatever liquor could be scavenged between barrages, raising glasses to celebrate victory and to ease the pain of defeat. Eric Felten tells all of these stories and many more, and also offers exhaustively researched cocktail recipes. How’s Your Drink is an essential addition to the literature of spirits and a fantastic holiday gift for husbands and fathers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With authority and just a hint of snobbery, Wall Street Journal columnist Felten indulges the dedicated drinker with this unwavering, well-informed appreciation of the "secular communion" of a good drink. Chock-full of obscure and fascinating anecdotes, Felten's guide covers cocktail history, culture and craft, featuring appearances by the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway (who "ranked 'dry' martini drinking somewhere between bullfighting and big-game hunting in his hierarchy of the manly arts"), Queen Elizabeth II and James Bond, along with a long list of notable bartenders and drink experts. Felten seamlessly interweaves drink recipes with their respective histories, detailing for instance the "culture wars" over the Bronx's paternity before divulging instructions for this near-forgotten gem, "robust enough to have spawned a slew of other solid cocktails" like the Income Tax Cocktail, the Maurice and the Smiler. Felden's wry, almost lyrical writing style is quickly absorbing, like bellying up next to a funny, friendly, knowledgeable career drinker. Quoting the New York Times, Felten asserts that "we should know mixed drinks if we care to be thought cultured"; if that's so, this fun read should turn any unrefined boozehound into a class act.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Agate Surrey; 1st edition (November 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572840897
• ISBN-13: 978-1572840898
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love the column, really love the book, November 23, 2007

By 

Dee (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well (Hardcover)

I've been reading and enjoying Felten's WSJ column since it began, so I was primed to enjoy this book. But I have to say that the book exceeded my already high expectations. Felten has done a brilliant job of weaving together stories about cocktail culture into a wonderfully absorbing whole. This is an even richer book--funnier, more thoughtful, more erudite--than you might think just from reading the WSJ columns. This is not only a great book about cocktails, but also a great book of American miscellanea seen, as the cool little half-dustjacket has it, through the prism of a glass.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of The Best Drinks Books Ever, October 30, 2007

By 

Christopher Carlsson "Spiritual Advisor" (Rochester, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well (Hardcover)

I have read hundreds of books on Drink (and much to my wife's dismay, have most of them in my library). Every so often, you find a good book on mixing drinks, but most are soulless compendiums of recipes from other books and endlessly repetitive with little insight or inspiration. Other times, you find a good book on the history of one type of libation or another, other times again one finds a social history. Almost never does one find all these elements in one book in equal measure. This is that almost never book.
Eric Felten combines all these elements with style, prose, twists and a wry sense of humor and insight into almost every element (or should I say cocktail) and makes each one a delight in the immediate sense and food for thought and experimentation for later. Not only does it supply a wonderful palette of cocktail recipes, but great stories to go with them and clues for research after it - be it the book or a party, is all over.
A must read for any serious Cocktailian or student of drink.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Etymology of the cocktail, November 27, 2007

By 

Andrew Sachs (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well (Hardcover)

As the cocktail enjoys a well deserved resurgence, this new generation is quite fortunate indeed to have a guide in Eric Felten, and a guide book that is as fascinating as it is informative.

Make no mistakes -- this is no dry reference manual. Felten has an easy writing style and a marked ability to elevate the mixed drink to the level of literature while at the same time making his smart insight approachable to all. Even teetotalers will enjoy reading this rich look at our cultural history that provides insight into the culture of prohibition as well as the modern aesthetic that gave birth to the Appletini.

How's Your Drink is a literary work that will surely impact the way in which the cocktail is appreciated. In a world polluted with Martini's that are nothing of the kind, and sugary concoctions designed more for shock value than taste, Felton's book offers a smart, witty, and incisive insight into the culture of the cocktail.