Mondo Cocktail [Hardcover]

Christine Sismondo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2005

The Oxford Dictionary defines cocktail as any combination of diverse elements, especailly potent ones. Mondo Cocktail is as much about the potent elements of literature, history, sociology and business as it is about gin, scotch, vodka and rum. This is a unique, fun and informative narrative history of the cocktail.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 234 pages
• Publisher: Mcarthur & Company (November 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552785114
• ISBN-13: 978-1552785119
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,190,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mondo Lit, July 9, 2006

By 

Ted Haigh "Dr.Cocktail" (Burbank, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mondo Cocktail (Hardcover)

Mondo Cocktail was an unexpected pleasure. I'm rather heavily invested in cocktail books, and a very small percentage of the ones in current distribution are worthy of their subject. Of those that are, I either know or have had some sort of interaction with all of their authors - at least I thought I had. I was woefully unaware of Christine Sismondo. Hers is a literary text, and that's a juxtaposition rarely found: the literary cocktail book. Like other nonfiction books of belletristic note, Mondo Cocktail draws from a wellspring of divergent citations, removed from the central (in this case) cocktail topic, and weaves them artfully into a persuasive narrative. It's both readable and sophisticated. It's also personal in that she stitches herself and her feelings about the subject into the larger tapestry, comfortably, but not self-consciously. She eschews the common stories with their predictable twists, instead opting for her own apparently depthy research. This personal approach invariably introduces elements in the writing with which I disagree, but what a fabulous time I had finding them.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but flawed., December 27, 2005

By 

Dobbs (Los Angeles, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mondo Cocktail (Hardcover)

There are some really interesting tidbits in this book and I think it's a good read, most especially for some of the drink recipes (the one for Bourbon Sours is excellent). However, the author does tend to lose focus and ramble on about personal things that aren't even remotely as interesting as the non-personal anecdotes. In addition, when she refers to Allen Ginsberg as Allen Ginsburg and his famous poem as The Howl (it's just called Howl), her research talents (not to mention knowledge of things someone of her generation should be familiar with) are rather suspect. The rift between fact and error in that one example makes me seriously doubt the veracity of much of the book's other claims.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Drink Recipes are Awful, December 31, 2005

By 

Fat Rat "duskki" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mondo Cocktail (Hardcover)

I tend to agree with the last reviewer--the author's research is spotty at best, yet she speaks with such authority as to brook no disagreement.

It's odd that she claims to draw on and respect the history of the cocktails contained, that she positions herself as a cocktail purist, and yet her recipes are almost unfailingly modern twistings of the originals.

The worst is her martini recipe: 5 drops of vermouth! That's not a martini, it's chilled gin.