The Joy of Drinking (Hardcover)

by Barbara Holland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Holland, a prolific and wide-ranging writer (Gentlemen's Blood, among others), distills a considerable tonnage of fact and trivia into this casual, shot-sized volume, the kind once found in every libation-related library, tucked behind every bar next to the Mr. Boston guide and a dog-eared paperback joke collection. She has a breezy, whimsical style, perfectly suited to her swift romp across the histories and cultures of alcohol down through the ages. While disclosing facts about the drinking habits—and abuses—of characters like Mark Anthony, Samuel Pepys and Pope Leo XIII, Holland includes summaries of how various kinds of fermentations and distillates were developed, often accidentally, in cultures from ancient Arabia to present-day America, and in times from Ptolemy's to Prohibition. She includes several recipes for home-style "remedies" like elderberry wine and applejack, as well as diagrams and instructions for the construction of your own backyard still. It's the sort of book-length essay that makes a perfect Father's Day gift, with stocking-stuffer backlist potential in seasons to come. (May)
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Review

"Impressive…Holland has a light, winsome tourch and is always funny."—New York Times

"With a style as witty, practical and Triple Sec as M.F.K. Fisher's, Holland's "The Joy of Drinking" grows from a hilarious ancient-history lesson into a compulsively readable mini-mosaic of humans and our various fermented tipples." —Los Angeles Times

"Holland, a prolific and wide-ranging writer, distills a considerable tonnage of fact and trivia into this casual, shot-sized volume...She has a breezy, whimsical style, perfectly suited to her swift romp across the histories and cultures of alcohol down through the ages." —Publishers Weekly

"Mixing fact, fable, anecdote, and personal opinion with irresistible panache, cultural historian Barbara Holland’s The Joy of Drinking distills thousands of years of humankind’s lusty relationship with alcohol—made from fermented honey, hops, grapes, grains, and even mare’s milk—into a slim, sparkling history that covers all manner of blithe spirits, from lowly beer, ‘the cornerstone of civilization,’ to the vaunted martini, aka ‘Fred Astaire in a glass.’" —Elle Praise for the national bestseller When All the World Was Young:“A wise, funny, haunting and thoroughly grown-up book.”—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
“Beautifully written...sharply detailed recollections...compelling, both touching and funny. Holland writes with breezy elegance and a sly wit.”—New York Times Book Review
“Imagine Lauren Bacall narrating Tristram Shandy...Leisurely and rich as a long, steamy summer day.”—Chicago Tribune
“Richly detailed, droll, and very human. She could be our E. B. White.”—Washingtonian (a Best Book of 2004)
“The word charming could have been coined just so it could be ascribed to Holland.”—Booklist
“A smart coming-of-age text...an acute narrative of how the clever Holland came to be so writerly.”—Kirkus Reviews

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596913371
• ISBN-13: 978-1596913370
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #229,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A high-octane, amusing and idiosyncratic history of alcohol, May 1, 2007

By	Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Civilization, said William Faulkner, began with fermentation.

This makes sense. You'll sweat carrying even a few bushels of fresh fruit. But if you let that fruit ripen and ferment, you can fill a bottle with the liquid, walk over to a friend's house and have a party --- and if that isn't civilized, what is?

Barbara Holland, a widely praised essayist, returns with a short, idiosyncratic history of alcohol. Whether you drink or not, it's a fascinating book on an important subject --- maybe an all-important subject.

I'm kidding? Not so. The impulse to leave this reality behind is hard-wired in most of us. For Dr. Andrew Weil, the desire for intoxication begins when we're kids, spinning around and around and around until we're thoroughly dizzy. Later, we graduate to substances. But the deal's the same: We want to get high. Or, as Samuel Johnson put it, looking at the dark side of drink, "He who makes a beast of himself at least rids himself of the pain of being a man."

For most of Holland's book, the beast is hidden. What we find --- to our certain astonishment --- is the ubiquity of alcohol in daily life. She starts with the Bible, moves on to Marco Polo, and digresses to muse about all those centuries when the only amusement was socializing:

Along with occasionally promoting drunken brawls, alcohol encouraged a more tolerant interest in one's fellow man. Note that today vodka-soaked Russia doesn't produce murderous fanatics like those of caffeine-soaked Islamic societies. Drunk, the suicidal Russian kills only himself.

The book kicks in for me in the Middle Ages, with the rise of the tavern, the Starbucks of its time. Beer, sack, mead --- gee, it's fun just saying those words. But then came gin, powered by the juniper berry. And with that poisonous brew, which made men violent and women unreasonable, we see, for the first time, the power of drink to ride like an apocalyptic horseman through an entire social class, wiping lives out by the thousands. In the mid-1700s, London's streets were a sea of drunks; "little girls took up prostitution to support their habit." Gentlemen were spared the gin curse, but only because their daily consumption was "four to six bottles of port, drunk slowly in small glassfuls."

The New World was no more sober. Christmas in the Colonies lasted three weeks --- but who remembered? George Washington bought votes with liquor. Not long after, Thomas Jefferson worried about alcohol consumption and proposed that Americans drink wine, a drink few had tasted and fewer liked.

You know about Vin Mariani, the cocaine-laced wine endorsed by Pope Leo XIII. But did you know Presidents Grant and McKinley adored it? And Queen Victoria?

Prohibition led to the rise of the Martini, which merits a chapter all its own. "Fred Astaire in a glass," someone said of it. Winston Churchill, a brandy and champagne man, made his by pouring gin in a pitcher and nodding at a nearby bottle of vermouth. And so on....this drink inspires anecdotes.

Alcoholics Anonymous. Hangovers (which can, apparently, be cured by a product called Sob'r-K). The best recipe for a Bloody Mary. The water-and-fitness craze. Red wine for health. Barbara Holland dances over every alcohol-related topic and trend, sprinkling each with some amusing tidbit or wry observation.

And she ends? Where else? A barstool. In the midwest. With the guy on the next stool asking, "How's your mom?"

Fun to read. And, even more fun: a great gift.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bottoms up!, May 20, 2007

By	Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I never knew drinking could be so much fun (or that it used to be even more fun!) until I read Barbara Holland's new book, "The Joy of Drinking". Packing a wallop as good as some of the cocktails she describes, Holland compares how alcohol brought people together for the first time thousands of years ago to now.... the change in our own lifetime in the way we drink has been profound. It's as much a commentary on sociology as the booze itself.

Holland's humor is dry and when I found myself chortling at some of her lines, I knew I was hooked on the book. Early on she describes the percentage of daily nutritional needs that are met by a moderate beer drinker and then goes on to say, "should he go on to immoderate beer drinking, he becomes a walking vitamin pill." Now, THAT'S good stuff! She quotes Mark Twain as saying, "sometimes too much drink is barely enough". The book is (if I may say so), "laced" with these witticisms and it gives her work a distinct flavor for which even vodka lovers might yearn.

But "The Joy of Drinking" gets serious, too. Invading wine countries that defeated spirits countries found the local brew not to their liking. The drinking habits of the Founding Fathers, both singly and collectively, are covered here as well...the history books never told us that, as I recall. She has chapters on the gin of England, the not so pure Puritans, the temperance movement, Alcoholics Anonymous, hangovers, boozers versus coffee and water drinkers, etc. There's so much here in this 148-page prose and all of it is good.

"The Joy of Drinking" may never outsell "the Joy of Cooking", but it should. Holland's narrative style is a delight and her book mirrors what has become lost in the transition to the electronic age. The main thrust of the book seems to be this....drinking for dozens of generations was a social merriment and now we have flavored vodkas, vintage wines and people drinking alone at home as they pore over their computers. Yes, "joy" is the key word in the title and Holland reminds us that things have indeed changed with regard to that social nature of drink... change that she sees not for the good. I highly recommend "The Joy of Drinking". It's a wonderful romp!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great non-fiction summer read, June 26, 2007

By	W. Sibley (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful read. Ms. Holland produced a tightly written, humerous look at drinking. She even lets you know how to build a still.