The World's Best Bartenders' Guide (Paperback)

by D. Bain (Author) "As with life itself, things change-including bartenders..." (more)
Key Phrases: make the most popular drinks, mixing glass half, home bartender, Bloody Mary, New York, Triple Sec (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Anyone can master the art of mixing the perfect drink--with all the confidence, style, and panache seen in the world's finest bars and restaurants. How? Ask the professionals. Now, for the first time, today's leading bartenders from the 50 best bars in the world reveal: the secrets of the classic cocktail (with special variations)recipes for rare and exotic drinksspecial secrets and tips of the professionalsand other tricks-of-the-trade that characterize the best mixologists Every home bartender will be mixing, shaking, and pouring drinks to please the most discerning guest: tropical drinks from award-winning Caribbean bartenders, hearty drinks from Irish pubs, and specialty cocktails from Montreal, Seattle, Key West, Beverly Hills, Boston, Hong Kong and dozens of other cities--and from the very best bars and bartenders.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: HP Trade; 1st edition (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557882967
• ISBN-13: 978-1557882967
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #719,858 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The World's Best Bartenders' Guide" lives up to its name., October 7, 1998

By A Customer

Anything with the pluck to call itself "the best" has to stir up your suspicions, right? Well . . . "The World's Best Bartenders' Guide" is exactly that - the best. The premise is simple. If you want to know how to mix the best drinks, ask the world's best bartenders. That is exactly the objective authors Joseph Scott and Donald Bain set for themselves and the result is nothing short of . . . well the world's best bartenders' guide. Along with identifying what their exhaustive research has determined to be the world's 50 greatest bars and their keepers, Scott and Bain share their secrets of what and how. I mean this book doesn't just tell you how to mix the classic martini. It tells you that the secret to making a martini a la the bartender at Morton's in Manhattan is to pour out the brine from the olive jar and replace it with vermouth. Variations on the Manhattan? The book offers more than a half-dozen, and a tip from the bar manager at Jardines Jazz Club in Kansas City - pour in the vermouth first, then it's easy to adjust the whiskey to taste. Want to know how to stock your home bar? It's there, compliments of the experts. Want to know the secret to mixing any cocktail? "Make and serve every drink with love," says the most popular barman in the Dominican Republic. Want to know all there is to know about cognac? See Salvatore Calabrese in the Library Bar at the Lanesborough Hotel in London. Want to try a centuries-old cognac? Salvatore will oblige - if your pocketbook can take it. From Cuba to China, Mexico to Paris, all points in the U.S., all weigh in here. I knew I was tired of the same old fare when my wife and I went out, or even entertained at home. What to do, however, was the problem. Until now. "The World's Greatest Bartenders' Guide." Kudos Messers Scott and Bain.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book lives up to its title, October 20, 1998

By A Customer

An excellent book.

This book is a great read, and has a great format. For the drink recipes, it introduces the cocktail, describes its history, nuances about its construction, or interesting stories related to how it is made, then it provides a variety of different recipes and variations on how to make it.

It is refreshing to see such a creative, and informational book on mixology. I've grown bored of the cocktail books that simply list recipes, without any background or even details about how to add that special "Quality" to the drink that makes them stand out.

-Robert

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic history and mixing instructions for a few drinks, September 23, 2001

By	Mike (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This guide takes the sensible approach of instructing aspiring house bartenders in a variety of ways of mixing the most common drinks in America. In addition to lengthy and entertaining histories of each drink, celebrity favorites, anecdotes from experienced bartenders, and, of course, multiple recipes for each drink, this guide imparts a sense of respect for liquor and for the art of making delicious beverages.

All the bartenders in this book, as well as the editors, forcefully condemn drinking to get drunk, instead treating alcohol as an incomparable treat to be used sparingly and only in the most delicious recipes possible. Thus, Long Island Iced Teas are denigrated for being immensely alcoholic with no particularly interesting flavor of their own.

My complaint regarding this work is personal: that the editors only treat snazzy, modern drinks is sensible from the perspective that such drinks are what the public is interested in learning about, but it leaves people with more exotic tastes or an interest in the popular drinks of bygone days left without much information. Still, I have found this guide otherwise brilliant.