Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,000 Cocktails

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If it's only one big book you want covering all the cocktail recipes, leaving the glitz of color photos for the depth of practical coverage, make it ULTIMATE BAR BOOK: THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO OVER 1,000 COCKTAILS. Here are all the classics plus new cocktails such as Bali Highball. Here also are recommendations for home bars, coverage of utensils and mixers, sections on non-alcoholic drinks, and tips for entertaining with cocktails. Novices shouldn't be put off by the volume, either: it's written especially for beginners and teaches the basics and techniques of the mixed drink, assuming no prior knowledge.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

The Ultimate Bar Book, at 450 pages, is as comprehensive as you are likely ever to need. It provides recipes to the classics and all of their variants, newly fashionable drinks, and provides rational commentary on the ingredients--whether to use the pricey ones or not, and what equivalents you might use. It even provides a guide to the barware for each drink.

The book is well constructed and attractive. Its enjoyable just to thumb through it, and to see what is in so many drinks. The mixing trends come out after a brief review of the many drinks--you can easily expand your cocktail repertoire without the fuss of mixing and failing several times.

I recommend the book as a basic bar staple. If you enjoy the art of "mixology," this is a fun sourcebook.

This book surpasses any other book on drinks. It runs the gamut of drinks from alcohol to non-alcoholic. There's a section in the back for punches, and to boot, a section for hangover remedies. I'm sixty years old and this is the best bar book I've every ecountered.

This was my first book I bought to do with making drinks and I couldn't be happier. First of all, the book itself is amazing, great hard cover and beautiful pages. Next, the author really spends some time going over 101 of making drinks. Lastly, the recipes are very well put together along with side notes for variations and suggested substitutes. At the end, the author even gives drink recipes for morning after remedies. And again, I must point out the beauty of the book, sure it's hard to keep it open, but unless you are actually a professional bartender needing a spiral book, the Ultimate Bar Book is beautiful enough to just be a decorative item in the kitchen. It's also nice how the author will stop and take a minute to discuss the classic cocktails and their histories, etc. The author also takes breaks in the book to talk about the individual alcohol's themselves using elegant page colors and patterns. Funny enough, having this book now makes me want to go out and buy another bar book, but I actually can't find another one that meets the beauty, elegance, sophistication, amount of knowledge, insights gained, and completeness as the "Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,000 Cocktails".
Bravo! And I will be waiting for what will come next from Mittie Hellmich.

3 Jan 2011 Update: I love this book so much and I still can't find a better bar book, that I bought a second copy. I keep my new second copy in my bookcase in my study and my first book in the kitchen. Over time my first book has gotten a bit messy due to making drinks with it nearby at parties (there have been a few crazy ones which inevitably leads to some spilling action) and also writing notes on pages commenting on how I liked the drink and any personal suggestions of adjusting the recipe.

I have over ten books that contain drink recipes and this is by far the best. It has tons of drink recipes. The drinks are all the standard names, rather than the crazy names in many books. It also has lots on information that is really unobtrusive, because what you really want when you buy a book like this is drink recipes.

It has a very nice cover. I've spilled stuff on it, and it's wiped right off. Plus, this book is nice enough that no matter how fancy-schmancy your bar is, then this book will fit right in.

It has illustrations of the kind of glass for every drink, which is very cool, because I can never remember what an old-fashioned glass is.

Also, it has sketches of all of the different kinds of bar equipment out there. I never knew there were five different kinds of wine openers, and they are a butler's friend, classic corkscrew, lever pull, screwpull, sommelier's corkscrew and a winged corkscrew. My new goal is to collect all five.

It also has different, cool information about the different alcohols. Like it talked about how Don Jose Maria Guadalupe Cuervo was the one who invented tequila in 1795. I love Cuervo tequila, so it was cool to know how it got started.

I have a total of 4 books, all of which have many overlapping recipes, but I must say, this book is the one I go to first.

First off, it is outrageously easy to find drinks, because they are organized in a very well thought-out manner; the first classification is the primary alcohol, and then alphabetically. It's also nice to have a, for example, "vodka party" and just buy a lot of vodka, and fine tune it with liqueurs. It also makes it easy to think "I have some extra tequila, what could I do with it besides make margaritas?" A bonus is that the classic drinks (e.g. martinis) have variations all right next to each other, so you can see what a chocolate martini would be using vs. a dirty one.

Another little nice thing is that a good chunk of drinks have a small explanation, so you feel like you're reading more than just a cookbook-like book that is just full of things, but doesn't really pique any interest. Sometimes it'll tell you its origin, or its old use back many centuries ago.

I could go on and on about it, but I'll just say that I cannot recommend this book enough above all else!

After owning and using this book for some time I felt compelled to share my thoughts. It's every bit as good as the other reviewers say but has one shortcoming that I haven't seen mentioned: the font is very, very small. Years ago I could have read it in dim light but now I need bright light and a carefully adjusted distance. For those for whom it makes a difference, you may want to consider a more easily read text such as Drinkology: The Art and Science of the Cocktail, which hasn't gathered quite as many accolades but is actually very similar and features a bigger font.

This is a well formatted and concise reference book for non-professionals.
It's smaller size is appreciated considering bar space.
However, it could be a bit larger in hight and width with slightly larger print.
The binding is nice and the cover is sturdy and even rich appearing.
A smaller abbreviated paperback version would be nice addition for an informal party bar.

I have owned The World Bartender's guide for over 10 years and became fed up with the set-up of the book (the recipes are alphabetically ordered). So I went on a search for a better book - and I found it in The Ultimate Bar Book. Not only is the book beautifully designed with a hard cover, it is also user friendly so to speak. The recipes are organized by the main alcoholic ingredient. There is also an index you can search if you know the name of a drink but not the ingredients. Highly recommended.

This book lets you sort through the recipes in a logical manner. Drinks are separated by ingredient and type of drink (eg. drinks served in a wine glass, or drinks served in a high-ball glass as well as drinks with rum or drinks with vodka)

Very easy to navigate through the book quickly to get your night started. Makes a great gift, and would definitely buy again!(I have already bought 3)